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ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 



oni. 



ilHacmtUan'B ^nrk^t Am^rtran nnh Sngltfilj (EluBBXtB 



A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Elementary and 
Secondary Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc. 



Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. 

American Democracy from Washing- 
ton to Wilson. 

American Patriotism in Prose and 
Verse. 

Andersen's Fairy Tales. 

Arabian Nights' Entertainments. 

Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. 

Austen's Pride and Prejudice. 

Austen's Sense and Sensibility. 

Bacon's Essays. 

Baker's Out of the Northland. 

Bible (Memorable Passages). 

Blackmore's Lorna Doone. 

Boswell's Life of Johnson. Abridged. 

Browning's Shorter Poems. 

Mrs. Browning's Poems (Selected). 

Bryant's Thanatopsis, etc. 

Bryce on American Democracy. 

Bulwer-Lytton's Last Days of Pom- 
peii. 

Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation. 

Burns' Poems (Selections). 

Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. 

Byron's Shorter Poems. 

Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 

Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship. 

Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Won- 
derland. 

Chaucer's Prologue and BUnight's 
Tale. 

Church's The Story of the Iliad. 

Church's The Story of the Odyssey. 

Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. 

Cooper's The Deerslayer. 

Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. 

Cooper's The Spy. 

Curtis' Prue and I. 

Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. 

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Part I. 

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Abridged. 

De Quincey's Confessions of an Eng- 
lish Opium-Eater. 

De Quincey's Joan of Arc, and The 
English Mail-Coach. 

Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and The 
Cricket on the Hearth. 

Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. 

Dickens' David Copperfield. (Two 
vols.) 

Dickens' Oliver Twist. 



Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. 

Early American Orations, 1760-1824. 

Edwards' Sermons. 

Eliot's Mill on the Floss. 

Eliot's Silas Mamer. 

Emerson's Early Poems. 

Emerson's Essays. 

Emerson's Representative Men. 

English Essays. 

English Narrative Poems. 

Ex>och-niaking Papers in U. S. His- 
tory. 

Franklin's Autobiography. 

Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford. 

Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, 
and Other Poems. 

Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. 

Gray's Elegy, etc., and Cowper's 
John Gilpin, etc. 

Grimm's Fairy Tales. 

Hale's The Man Without a Country. 

Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair. 

Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old 
Manse. 

Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. 

Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. 

Hawthorne's The House of the Seven 
Gables. 

Hawthorne's Twice-told Tales (Se- 
lections). 

Hawthorne's Wonder-Book. 

Holmes' Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Table. 

Holmes' Poems. 

Homer's Iliad (Translated). 

Homer's Odyssey (Translated). 

Hughes' Tom Brown's School Days. 

Hugo's Les Miserables. Abridf ?d. 

Huxley's Selected Essays and Ad- 
dresses. 

Irving's Knickerbocker's History. 

Irving' s Life of Goldsmith. 

Irving's Sketch Book. 

Irving's Tales of a Traveller. 

Irving's The Alhambra. 

Keary's Heroes of Asgard. 

a Kempis : The Imitation of Christ. 

Klingsley's The Heroes. 

Kingsley's Westward Ho ! 

Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. 

Lamb's The Essays of Elia. 

Letters from Many Pens. 



iMarmtUan'a ^nrk^t Ammran nnh EngltHli (EIubbub 



A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Elementary and 
Secondary Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc. 



oln's Addresses, Inaugurals, and 
tters. 
ihart's Life of Scott. Abridged. 

.iidon's Call of the Wild, 
^^ngfellow's Evangeline. 
Longfellow's Hiawatha. 
Longfellow's Miles Standish. 
Longfellow's Miles Standish and 

Minor Poems. 
Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. 
Lowell's Earlier Essays. 
Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal. 
Macaulay's Essay on Addison. 
Macaulay's Essay on Hastings. 
Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive. 
Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 
Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. 
Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson. 
Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. 
Milton's Minor Poems. 
Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I. and 

n. 

Old English Ballads. 

Old Testament Selections. 

Palgrave's Golden Treasury. 

Parkman's Oregon Trail. 

Plutarch's Lives of CaesAr, Brutus, 

and Mark Antony. 
Poe's Poems. 

Poe's Prose Tales (Selections). 
Poems, Narrative and Lyrical. 
Pope's Homer's Iliad. 
Pope's Homer's Odyssey. 
Pope's The Rape of the Lock. 
Reade's Cloister and the Hearth. 
Representative Short Stories. 
Roosevelt's Writings. 
Rossetti's (Christina) Selected 

Poems. 
Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. 
Ruskm's The Crown of Wild Olive 

and Queen of the Air. 
Scott's Guy Maimering. 
Scott's Ivanhoe. 
Scott's Kenilworth. 
Scott's Lady of the Lake. 
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
Scott's Marmion. 
Scott's Quentin Durward. 
Scott's Rob Roy. 
Scott's The Talisman. 
Select Orations. 



Selected Poems, for Required Read- 
ing in Secondary Schools. 

Selections from American Poetry. 

Selections for Oral Reading. 

Shakespeare's As You Like It. 

Shakespeare's Coriolanus. 

Shakespeare's Hamlet. 

Shakespeare's Henry V. 

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. 

Shakespeare's King Lear. 

Shakespeare's Macbeth. 

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. 

Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's 
Dream 

Shakespeare's Richard H. 

Shakespeare's Richard IH. 

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. 

Shakespeare's The Tempest. 

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. 

Shelley and Keats: Poems. 

Sheridan's The Rivals and The 
School for Scandal. 

Short Stories. 

Short Stories and Selections. 

Southern Orators: Selections. 

Southern Poets: Selections. 

Southey's Life of Nelson. 

Spenser's Faerie Qucene, Book I. 

Stevenson's Kidnapped. 

Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae. 

Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey^ 
and An Inland Voyage. 

Stevenson's Treasure Island. 

Swift's Gulliver's Travels. 

Tennyson's Idylls of the King. 

Tennyson's In Memoriam. 

Tennyson's The Princess. 

Tennyson's Shorter Poems. 

Thackeray's English Humourists. 

Thackeray's Henry Esmond. 

Thoreau's Walden. 

Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay. 
Abridged. 

Virgil's ^neid. 

Washington's Farewell Address, and 
Webster's First Bunker Hill Ora- 
tion. 

Whittier's Snow-Bound and Other 
Early Poems. 

Wister's The Virginian. 

Woodman's Journal. 

Wordsworth's Shorter Poems. 



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TORONTO 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 



SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS 
OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY MAURICE GARLAND FULTON 

) 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, 

INDIANA UNIVERSITY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1920 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1920 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Set up and electrotyped. PubUshed Aug. 1920. 



SEP -f !9?o 
©CI.A597346 



'VvO 



IN REMEMBRANCE OF 

R. B. F. 

1849 1919 

FROM WHOSE SUGGESTION 
THIS BOOK ORIGINATED 

Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son.** 
Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI 



PREFACE 

My aim has been to bring together passages of ap- 
preciable length selected from Theodore Roosevelt's 
Autobiography and from his more significant writings in 
the fields of history, adventure, public questions, and 
natural history. It was in these diverse fields that his 
wide interests, his intensity and enthusiasm and his 
habits of clear thinking led him to write vigorously and 
with authority. In these selections, moreover, are re- 
vealed the characteristics of his mind and spirit. 

Americanism can best be studied concretely through the 
careers of great Americans. For such a purpose few lives 
will be more useful than that of Roosevelt. If this book 
stimulates among the present and future generations of 
young Americans an interest in this great man's life and 
leadership and in his ideals for democracy practically 
applied, it will have fulfilled my purpose. 

My especial thanks are due to Mrs. Edith Carow 
Roosevelt for permission to use generously material from 
Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography, without which this 
book would have been incomplete. 

M. G. F. 

Bloomington, Indiana. 



vu 



CONTENTS 

Introduction page 

Roosevelt^s Career xi 

Roosevelt/s Personality xiii 

Roosevelt as a Writer xxii 

Roosevelt/s Style xxx 

* Bibliography xxxv 

Autobiography 

Boyhood and Youth 1 

The Vigor of Life 16 

Entering Politics 28 

In Cowboy Land 38 

The Rough Riders ^5 

The Presidency 65 

Outdoors and Indoors 67 

History 

The Backwoodsmen of the Alleghanies / . 93 

The Historian of the Future 118 

Adventure 

Bear Hunting Experiences 133 

Getting Christmas Dinner on a Ranch 141 

Citizenship 

True Americanism 149 

The Strenuous Life 166 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Our Responsibilities as a Nation 173 

The Man with the Muckrake 177 

The Development of the American Nation 189 

Conservation of Natural Resources 202 

Duties of the Citizen 215 

Last Words on Americanism 243 

Natural History 

My Life as NaturaHst 247 

Nature Fakirs -258 

The Deer of North America 267 

The Whitetail Deer 277 

Observations on Concealing Coloration in African 

Animals 288 

Animals of Central Brazil 303 

Notes 315 



INTRODUCTION 

RoosE\rELT's Career 

Roosevelt's career is so fully presented in the selec- 
tions from his autobiography included in this book that 
it is needless to attempt here a sketch of his life. Neverthe- 
less it may be helpful to give the landmarks of his career 
by the simple but convenient means of a table showing the 
notable dates. 

Born in New York City, October 27, 1858. 
• Graduated from Harvard University, June 30, 1880. 

Married Alice Hathaway Lee, October 27, 1880. 

Served in New York State Legislature, 1882-1884. 

His first wife died, February 14, 1884. 

Spent several years on ranch in North Dakota, 1883- 
1886. 

Candidate for Mayor of New York City, 1886. 

Married Edith Kermit Carow, December 2, 1886. 

United States Civil Service Commissioner, 1889-1895. 

President of the New York Pohce Board, 1895-1897. 

Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1897-1898. 

Lieutenant-Colonel First Volunteer Cavalry, United 
States Army (^' Rough Riders''), May 6, 1898 (later be- 
came Colonel). 

Elected Governor of New York State, November 8, 
1898. 

Elected Vice-President of the United States, Novem- 
ber 4, 1900. 

xi 



xii INTRODUCTION 

Succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of President 
McKinley, September 14, 1901. 

Elected President, November 8, 1904. 

Awarded Nobel Peace Prize for efforts in connection 
with the Russo-Japanese Peace Treaty, 1906. 

Retired to private Ufe upon expiration of Presidential 
term, March 4, 1909. 

Became contributing editor of The Outlook, 1909. 

Sailed for Africa on a hunting trip, March 23, 1909. 

Returned from African trip, arriving at New York, 
June 18, 1910. 

Announced candidac}?- for a second nomination for the 
Presidency, February 25, 1912. 

Broke with the Republican Party and formed the 
Progressive Party, June 22, 1912. 

Nominated for President by the Progressive Party, 
August 7, 1912. 

Shot, at Milwaukee, by John Schrank, October 14, 1912. 

Defeated for Presidency by Woodrow Wilson, Novem- 
ber 5, 1912. 

Started on hunting and exploring trip in South America, 
October 14, 1913. 

Discovered and explored the River Theodore in Brazil, 
February to April, 1914. 

Returned to New York, May 19, 1914. 

Declined Progressive nomination for Presidency and 
supported Hughes, the Republican nominee, 1916. 

After declaration of war with German}^, offered to raise 
an army division, but the War Department declined his 
offer, 1917. 

Died at Sagamore Hill, January 6, 1919. 

A record such as this, even though stripped of all detail 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

and enlargement, constitutes a most impressive career. 
But it represents inadequately the variety of Roosevelt's 
achievements. To do this, it should evidence his knowledge 
of history equalled by few, his hunting trips and explora- 
tions which made him familiar not only with remote parts 
of his own country but also with two of the less well- 
known continents, his standing among scientists as an 
authority on the habits of big game in America and in 
Africa, his popularity and effectiveness as a speaker, his 
wide range of reading to which might be applied De- 
Quincey's description of his own accomplishment. Finally 
his books and other writings sufficient in number and 
quality to give him an enduring reputation in the field of 
letters irrespective of his other achievements. Further- 
more his domestic life was filled with the manifold re- 
sponsibilities of a husband and father, responsibihties 
which he felt as intensely as those of his public life, and 
discharged as faithfully. Such diversified abihty as this 
seems to justify the statement made of him that ^^ since 
Csesar, perhaps no one has attained among crowded duties 
and great responsibilities, such high proficiency in so many 
separate fields of activity.^' 

Roosevelt's Personality 

On more than one occasion Roosevelt said of himself 
that he was simply a man of ordinary abilities who had 
made the most of the gifts that were his. He was doubt- 
less sincere in this opinion, but he was undeniably the 
possessor of native endowments such as come to few men. 
The elements of his extraordinary personality have been 
so sympathetically and fairly set forth by his life-long 
friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, in a memorial address 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

before Congress, that it is desirable to make a lengthy 
extract. 

^'Theodore Roosevelt always believed that character 
was of greater worth and moment than anything else. He 
possessed abilities of the first order, which he was disposed 
to underrate because he set so much greater store upon the 
moral qualities which we bring together under the single 
word ^character.' 

^^Let me speak first of his abilities. He had a powerful, 
well-trained, ever-active mind. He thought clearly, 
independently, and with originality and imagination. 
These priceless gifts were sustained by an extraordinary 
power of acquisition, joined to a greater quickness of 
apprehension, a greater swiftness in seizing upon the 
essence of a question, than I have ever happened to see 
in any other man. His reading began with natural history, 
then went to general history, and thence to the whole 
field of literature. He had a capacity for concentration 
which enabled him to read with remarkable rapidity 
anj'-thing which he took up, if only for a moment, and 
which separated him for the time being from everything 
going on about him. The subjects upon which he was well 
and widely informed would, if enumerated, fill a large 
space, and to this power of acquisition was united not 
only a tenacious but an extraordinaril}^ accurate memory. 
It was never safe to contest with him on any question of 
fact or figures, whether they related to the ancient Assy- 
rians or to the present-day conditions of the tribes of cen- 
tral Africa, to the Syracusan Expedition, as told by 
Thucydides, or to protective coloring in birds and animals. 
He knew and held details always at command, but he was 
not mastered by them. He never failed to see the forest 



INTRODUCTION XV 

on account of the trees or the city on account of the 
houses. 

^^He made himself a writer, not only of occasional ad- 
dresses and essays, but of books. He had the trained 
thoroughness of the historian, as he showed in his history 
of the War of 1812 and of the Winning of the West, and 
nature had endowed him with that most enviable of gifts, 
the faculty of narrative and the art of the teller of tales. 
He knew how to weigh evidence in the historical scales 
and how to depict character. He learned to write with 
great ease and fluency. He was always vigorous, always 
energetic, always clear and forcible in everything he 
wrote — nobody could ever misunderstand him — and when 
he allowed himself time and his feehngs were deeply en- 
gaged he gave to the world many pages of beauty as well 
as power, not only in thought but in form and style. At 
the same time he made himself a public speaker, and here 
again, through a practice probably unequaled in amount, 
he became one of the most effective in all our history. In 
speaking, as in writing, he was always full of force and 
energy; he drove home his arguments and never was 
misunderstood. In many of his more carefully prepared 
addresses are to be found passages of impressive elo- 
quence, touched with imagination and instinct with grace 
and feeling. 

'^He had a large capacity for administration, clearness of 
vision, promptness in decision, and a thorough apprehen- 
sion of what constituted efficient organization. All the 
vast and varied work which he accomplished could not 
have been done unless he had had most exceptional nat- 
ural abilities, but behind them was the driving force of an 
intense energy and the ever-present belief that a man 



xW INTRODUCTION 

eould do what he willed to do. As he made himself an 
athlete, a horseman, a good shot, a bold explorer, so he 
made himself an exceptionally successful writer and 
speaker. Only a most abnormal energy would have en- 
abled him to enter and conquer in so many fields of in- 
tellectual achievement. But something more than energy 
and determination is needed for the largest success, espe- 
cially in the world ^s high places. The first requisite of 
leadership is abihty to lead, and that ability Theodore 
Roosevelt possessed in full measure. Whether in a game 
or in the hunting field, in a fight or in politics, he sought 
the front, where, as Webster once remarked, there is 
always plenty of room for those who can get there. His 
instinct was always to say ^come' rather than ^go,^ and 
he had the talent of command. 

^^The criticism most commonly made upon Theodore 
Roosevelt was that he was impulsive and impetuous, that 
he acted without thinlving. He would have been the last 
to claim infallibihty. His head did not turn when fame 
came to him and choruses of admiration sounded in his 
ears, for he was neither vain nor credulous. He knew that 
he made mistakes, and never hesitated to admit them to be 
mistakes and to correct them or put them behind him wlien 
satisfied that they were such. But he wasted no tune in 
mourning, explaining, or vainly regretting them. It is 
also true that the middle way did not attract him. He 
was apt to go far, both in praise and censure, although 
nobody could analyze quahties and balance them justly 
in judging men better than he. He felt strongly, and as 
he had no concealments of any kind, he expressed himself 
in like manner. But vehemence is not violence nor is 
earnestness anger, which a very wise man defined as a 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

brief madness. It was all according to his nature, just as 
his eager cordiality in meeting men and women, his keen 
interest in other people^s cares or joys, was not assumed, as 
some persons thought who did not know him. It was all 
profoundly natural, it was all real, and in that way and 
in no other was he able to meet and greet his fellow men. 
"The feeling that he was impetuous and impulsive was 
also due to th^ fact that in a sudden, seemingly unex- 
pected crisis he would act with great rapidity. This hap- 
pened when he had been for weeks, perhaps for months, 
considering what he should do if such a crisis arose. 
He always believed that one of the most important ele- 
ments of success, whether in public or in private life, was 
to know what one meant to do under given circumstances. 
If he saw the possibility of perilous questions arising, it 
was his practice to think over carefully just how he would 
act under certain contingencies. Many of the contin- 
gencies never arose. Now and then a contingency became 
an actuality, and then he was ready. He knew what he 
meant to do, he acted at once, and some critics considered 
him impetuous, impulsive, and, therefore, dangerous, be- 
cause they did not know that he had thought the question 
all out beforehand. Very many people, powerful elements 
in the community, regarded him at one time as a dangerous 
radical, bent upon overthrowing all the safeguards of 
society and planning to tear out the foundations of an 
ordered liberty. As a matter of fact, what Theodore 
Roosevelt was trying to do was to strengthen American 
society and American government by demonstrating to 
the American people that he was aiming at a larger 
economic equality and a more generous industrial oppor- 
tunity for all men, and that any combination of capital or 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

of business, which threatened the control of the Govern- 
ment by the people who made it, was to be curbed and 
resisted, just as he would have resisted an enemy who 
tried to take possession of the city of Washington. He 
had no hostility to a man because he had been successful 
in business or because he had accumulated a fortune. If 
the man had been honestly successful and used his fortune 
wisely and beneficently, he w^as regarded by Theodore 
Roosevelt as a good citizen. The Aoilgar hatred of wealth 
found no place in his heart. He had but one standard, one 
test, and that was whether a man, rich or poor, was an 
honest man, a good citizen, and a good American. 

^^All men admire courage, and that he possessed in the 
highest degree. But he had also something larger and 
rarer than courage, in the ordinary acceptation of the 
word. When an assassin shot him at Chicago he was 
severely wounded; how severely he could not tell, but it 
might well have been mortal. He went on to the great 
meeting awaiting him and there, bleeding, suffering, 
ignorant of his fate, but still unconquered, made his speech 
and went from the stage to the hospital. What bore 
him up was the dauntless spirit which could rise victorious 
over pain and darkness and the unknown and meet the 
duty of the hour as if all were well. A spirit like this 
awakens in all men more than admiration, it kindles 
affection and appeals to every generous impulse. 

"Very different, but equally compelling, was another 
quality. There is nothing in human beings at once so sane 
and so sjnupathetic as a sense of humor. This great gift 
the good fairies conferred upon Theodore Roosevelt at his 
birth in unstinted measure. No man ever had a more 
abundant sense of humor — joyous, irrepressible humor — 



INTRODUCTION xix 

and it never deserted him. Even at the most serious and 
even perilous moments if there was a gleam of humor any- 
where he saw it and rejoiced and helped himself with it 
over the rough places and in the dark hour. He loved fun, 
loved to joke and chaff, and, what is more uncommon, 
greatly enjoyed being chaffed himself. His ready smile and 
contagious laugh made countless friends and saved him 
from many an enmity. Even more generally effective than 
his humor, and yet allied to it, was the universal knowledge 
that Roosevelt had no secrets from the American people. 
''Yet another quality — perhaps the most engaging of 
all — was his homely, generous humanity which enabled 
him to speak directly to the primitive instincts of man. 

' He dwelt with the tribes of the marsh and moor, 

He sate at the board of kings; 
He tasted the toil of the burdened slave 

And the joy that triumph brings. 
But whether to jungle or palace hall 

Or white-walled tent he came, 
He was brother to king and soldier and slave, 

His welcome was the same.^ 

"He was very human and intensely American, and this 
knit a bond between him and the American people which 
nothing could ever break. And then he had yet one more 
attraction, not so impressive perhaps as the others, but 
none the less verj^ important and very captivating. He 
never by any chance bored the American people. They 
might laugh at him or laugh with him, they might like 
what he said or dishke it, they might agree with him or 
disagree with him, but they were never wearied of him 
and he never failed to interest them. He was never heavy, 



XX /iV TROD UCTION 

laborious, or dull. If he had made any effort to be always 
interesting and entertaining he would have failed and been 
tiresome. He was unfaiUngly attractive because he was 
always perfectly natural and his ovv-n unconscious self. 
And so all these things combined to give him his hold upon 
the American people, not only upon their minds but upon 
their hearts and their instincts, which nothing could ever 
weaken and which made him one of the most remarkable 
as he was one of the strongest characters that the history 
of popular government can show. He was also, and this 
is very revealing and explanatory, too, of his vast popular- 
ity, a man of ideals. He did not expose them daily on the 
roadside with language fluttering about them like the 
Thibetan who ties his shp of paper to the prayer wheel 
whirling in the wind. He kept his ideals to himself until 
the hour of fulfillment arrived. Some of them were the 
dreams of boyhood from which he never departed and 
which I have seen him carry out shyly and yet thoroughly 
and with intense personal satisfaction. 

^^He had a touch of the knight errant in his daily life, al- 
though he would never have admitted it; but it was there. 
It was not visible in the medieval form of shining armor 
and dazzling tournaments but in the never-ceasing effort 
to help the poor and the oppressed, to defend and protect 
women and children, to right the wronged and succor the 
downtrodden. Passing by on the other side was not a 
mode of travel through life ever possible to him; and yet he 
was as far distant from the professional philanthropist as 
could well be imagined, for all he tried to do to help his 
fellow men he regarded as part of the day's work to be 
done and not talked about. No man ever prized senti- 
ment or hated sentimentality more than he. He preached 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

unceasingly the familiar morals which lie at the bottom of 
both family and public life. The blood of some ancestral 
Scotch covenanter or of some Dutch reformed preacher 
facing the tyranny of Philip of Spain was in his veins, and 
with his large opportunities and his vast audiences he was 
always ready to appeal for justice and righteousness. But 
his own particular ideals he never attempted to thrust 
upon the world until the day came w^hen they were to be 
translated into reahties of action. 

"When the future historian traces Theodore Roosevelt's 
extraordinary career he will find these embodied ideals 
planted like milestones along the road over which he 
marched. The^^ never left him. His ideal of public service 
was to be found in his life, and as his life drew^ to its close 
he had to meet his ideal of sacrifice face to face. All his 
sons went from him to the war and one was killed upon the 
field of honor. Of all the ideals that lift men up, the hard- 
est to fulfill is the ideal of sacrifice. Theodore Roosevelt 
met it as he had all others and fulfilled it to the last jot of 
its terrible demands. His country asked the sacrifice and 
he gave it with solemn pride and uncomplaining lips. 

"This is not the place to speak of his private life, but 
within that sacred circle no man was ever more blessed in 
the utter devotion of a noble wife and the passionate love 
of his children. The absolute purity and beauty of his 
family fife tell us why the pride and interest which his 
fellow countrymen felt in him were always touched with 
the warm fight of love. In the home so dear to him, in his 
sleep, death came, and — 

*^So Valiant-for-Truth passed over and all the trumpets 
sounded for him on the other side.'' 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

Roosevelt as a Writer 

Of the many sides to Roosevelt's activity, this volume 
aims to present merely one — his literary work. It has 
been well said of him that if he had any profession in 
private life it was that of literature. His fondness for 
writing began even in college and continued until his 
death. He enjoyed his literary work thoroughly and 
always hoped that it would take a larger part in his life 
than other duties usually permitted. But these other 
matters were so pressing that Roosevelt could seldom give 
to his writing more than his spare time. Nevertheless he 
was able in the midst of manifold duties to accomplish a 
great deal. 

An illustration in point is the way in which he wrote his 
account of the Rough Riders. Upon his return from Cuba 
in the summer of 1898, Roosevelt engaged to write an 
account of the part his regiment had taken in the Spanish- 
American War. The story was to appear first in Scribner^s 
Magazine, and later to be published as a book. A few 
weeks after agreeing to write the account, he began his 
vigorous campaign for the Governorship of New York, but 
neither the campaign nor duties after he took office pre- 
vented him from delivering the monthly instalments on 
schedule time. Of almost every one of his books it might 
be said that it was written in the spare moments of his 
busy life as a relaxation from public duties. This cir- 
cumstance gives force to the remark of John Morley, the 
English statesman and author, that ^^ Roosevelt was a 
man of letters temporarily assigned to other duty.'' 

In a survey of Roosevelt's literary achievement, the 
first impressive feature is its quantity. When Roosevelt's 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

many other activities are taken into consideration, the 
quantity of his work becomes more significant. The Hst 
of his books on page xxxv shows over thirty titles — an 
accompHshment which in the case of a man giving un- 
divided attention to writing would be remarkable as an 
output for a period of about forty years. And when to 
these books, his major productions, are added the scores of 
speeches, state papers, magazine articles and newspaper 
editorials, which as yet are largely uncollected into book 
form, his work becomes more impressive even when con- 
sidered merely in respect to quantity. 

But a still more striking feature of his literary work is 
its range. Few writers have equalled Roosevelt in the 
production of works so varied in kind. He wrote his- 
tory — The Naval War of 1812^ The Winning of the West, 
A History of New York. He WTote biography — lives of 
Benton, Morris, and Oliver Cromwell. He described in 
books of travel and adventure his hunting and exploring 
trips in the Rocky Mountains, in Africa, and in South 
America. His more important magazine articles and 
speeches dealing with problems of government and citizen- 
ship were collected into volumes such as American I deals , 
The Strenuous Life, and History as Literature. He wrote 
also much on natural history — The Deer Family in America 
and Life History of African Game Animals, being notable 
books in this field. In addition to all these different types 
of books, mention must be made of his autobiography, his 
lectures, his orations, his state papers, and his editorials. 

With all their extent and variety, Roosevelt^s writings 
would not deserve attention unless they were solid and 
important contributions in their several fields. That most 
of them have permanent value of this kind seems to be the 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

verdict of those competent to judge. In particular is this 
true of his work in history and the kindred field of biog- 
raphy. Of his several books in this field, the four volumes 
of The Winning of the West, — a brilliant and accurate ac- 
count of the deeds of the frontiersmen in Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, and the Old Northwest, covering the closing years 
of the eighteenth century and the opening ones of the nine- 
teenth, are alone sufficient to establish Roosevelt's position 
as an historian. This book deservedly ranks with the 
best historical writings that America has produced. 

Roosevelt's books of travel and adventure also possess 
unquestioned value. Those relating to his experiences in 
the Far West contain unique pictures of the vanished 
frontier life, this being especiall}^ true of the volume Ranch 
Life and Hunting Trail. The books treating of his African 
and his South American trips contain not only interesting 
adventures but also valuable scientific information. 
Upon this point, Sir H. H. Johnston, an English ex- 
plorer and authority on Africa whose opinion is entirely 
unprejudiced, says mth reference especially to African 
Game Trails, ^'We should like to see Mr. Roosevelt's book 
take its place in the ranks of Bates's Naturalist in the 
Amazons, Schilhngs' With Flash Light and Rifle, and works 
of that character. He is a good zoologist ar\d a peculiarly 
accurate and discriminating observer. Although he has 
traversed lands visited by some of the greatest naturalist 
explorers of the world, he has still made discoveries him- 
self, or through others, and records a great many facts not 
hitherto knowTi about the life history of beasts and birds in 
Equatorial East Africa." A similar statement could be 
made regarding the interest and scientific value of his later 
book, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

The above quotation suggests the standing which 
Roosevelt^s observations on the habits of mammals and 
birds have among naturahsts. Most of his writing in this 
field was done incidentally to his accounts of his hunting 
trips. There is comparatively httle of this material in his 
earlier writings, such as Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, 
Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, The Wilderness Hunter , 
but there is more and more of it in the later books, such as 
Out Door Pastimes of an American Hunter, African Game 
Trails and Through the Brazilian Wilderness. Roosevelt 
v/as regretful that he did not devote more space in these 
first books to natural history. ^^I vaguely supposed/^ he 
said in later life, ^Hhat the obvious facts on the habits of 
the animals were known and let most of my opportunities 
pass by.^^ Books especially devoted to this subject, such as 
The Deer Family in America, and Life Histories of African 
Game Animals, contain important contributions to natural 
history and show that Roosevelt possessed the qualifica- 
tions of a naturalist, — keenness of observation, clearness of 
mind, accuracy in deduction, and absolute regard for 
truth. Roosevelt was, of course, not a scientist or a 
biologist in the narrower sense of the term. He cared 
nothing for the so-called ^'closef study of natural history, 
' but made his interest the study of the living animal in its 
habitat. As John Burroughs says of him, ^^He was a 
naturalist on the broadest grounds, uniting much technical 
knowledge with knowledge of the daily lives and habits of 
all forms of wild life.^^ One result at least of Roosevelt^s 
natural history writings has been to remind his country- 
men of the spirit of love, of zeal, and of intelhgence with 
which they should approach nature in any of its wonderful 
aspects. 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

When we turn to that section of Roosevelt's writings 
containing his addresses, essays, state papers, and mis- 
cellaneous writings, we come to the part of his work which 
has the least merit in a literary sense. Nevertheless these 
productions constitute a body of political idealism which 
the future will not overlook, the underlying ideas of which 
have been w^ell summarized by Mr. Harold Howland as 
follows: ^^ First he believed in a sternly moral standard of 
conduct. Right is right and wrong is wrong. It does not 
make wrong right to say that it is done in defense of prop- 
erty, on the one hand, or, on the other, done in behalf of 
the people. . . . Secondl3% he believed in democracy. He 
believed in it, not in any theoretical, doctrinaire fashion, 
but with peculiar concreteness and directness. . . . 
Thirdly, he laid a compelling emphasis upon the respon- 
sibility of the individual citizen as the primary condition 
of national progress. . . . Lasth^, he held to the golden 
middle course, not tepidly or timoroush^, but with the 
zeal and the conviction of a crusader. He was a middle- 
of-the-road man, not because he was unwilling or afraid 
to commit himself to the position on either side, but he 
found the way to truth to lie midway between the two 
extremes. He was a zealot and a fighter for the truth, 
justice and righteousness. He found no monopoly of any 
one of these precious possessions in the camp of the ex- 
tremists on either side. . . . This was the fourfold struc- 
ture of his creed: righteousness, democrac}^, individual 
character, and the true balance between opposing 
forces.'' 1 

Against the underlying ideas in Roosevelt's speeches 

' ''Theodore Roosevelt and his Times," Independent, Jan- 
uary 19, 1919. 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

and essays the charge of commonplaceness has sometimes 
been brought. The truth of the charge may be admitted, 
but it must be added that it was no ordinary and dull use 
of the commonplace. With Roosevelt the ordinary took 
on the air of extreme novelty because he imparted to it 
energy and passion. In regard to his ability to do this, it 
has been said, '^He did not content himself with a bare 
statement that children ought to love their fathers and 
mothers. In his hands the obvious became a flaming 
sword. He would wave it vehemently above his head and 
defy the world to deny that crime ought to be punished and 
virtue rewarded. Such zest and joy did he put into his 
vigorous enunciations of what all sane men agree to be 
true, that he somehow appeared, even when uttering 
platitudes, a great moral and political discoverer.'^ Such 
ability to vivify frdinary routine thoughts and sentiments 
connotes high mental talents and a rush of soul of a kind to 
which not inaptly might be applied the term genius. Cer- 
tainly many of the world's writers who have been most in- 
fluential with the mass of mankind have had a gift of this 
kind, and it ought not be derogatory to Roosevelt's work 
that he was successful in this way. 

Another charge brought sometimes against Roosevelt's 
work is its redundancy. It is asserted that he was al- 
ways reiterating the same ideas, and it is easy to per- 
ceive that especially in his speeches, Roosevelt nearly 
always boxed the compass of his favorite ideas. This 
makes much reading in the speeches tedious, but in 
apology it may be said that it was the method best adapted 
to the purpose of Roosevelt. He clearly felt himself to be a 
teacher to his generation, and he used, as all similar leaders 
have done, the teacher's method of line upon line and 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

precept upon precept. Wearisome though the method 
may be, yet this drawback must be overlooked in the hght 
of the results. As Colquhoun, an English student of 
Rooseveit^s life and work remarks, ^^But what Roosevelt 
has accomplished in awakening a public conscience, and 
when we remember that this was primarily one of his aims, 
we can forgive the redundancy of some of his public utter- 
ances. There is no better way to make truth believed by 
the masses than that suggested by Lewis Carroll: ^He said 
it very loud and clear; he went and shouted it in my ear.' 
Roosevelt's success as a propagandist has been due to his 
saying things very loud and clear.'' 

From this mass of speeches and articles Roosevelt him- 
self has selected what he cared to preserve in book form, 
and has included it in the three volumes, American I deals j 
The Strenuous Life, and History as Literature. Of these 
books, American Ideals is in large measure the repository 
of many of Roosevelt's favorite pohtical ideas. The 
Strenuous Life deals with ideals of conduct and citizen- 
ship in a larger and more general wa}^ History as Litera- 
ture is more significant than the other two books. While 
it presents also ideals of citizenship, it has a wider range 
embracing especially comments on books and writers 
of such searching character as to give force to the remark 
someone made in connection with Roosevelt, ^^We have 
half or more than half a suspicion that an admirable 
literary critic was lost to the world when Mr. Roosevelt 
became a public character." 

We have seen how in the diverse fields of history, ad- 
venture, natural science, and pohtical discussion, Roose- 
velt has left solid and substantial contributions. But this 
sketch must not close without reference to another book 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

which is in some respects the most important single 
volume he produced. This is his autobiography entitled 
Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography. Written a few 
years after Roosevelt had returned to private life, the 
book was too close in time to the excitement of the writer's 
political career, and accordingly it is in large measure a 
justification of measures and policies. Nevertheless 
it will continue to attract readers not only because of its 
value as a record of a very significant political period from 
the pen of the one who was the leader in it, but also be- 
cause of the intimate and attractive revelation of the 
man Roosevelt. 

Herein are clearly exhibited his different interests. 
Herein are uncovered the characteristics of his mind and 
spirit. As Brander Matthews has remarked, ''It is a 
ver^^ human personality that is so disclosed; very en- 
gaging and very energetic; tingling with vitality, endowed 
with the zest of life and the gusto of living; not 
unduly self-conscious; interested in himself, no doubt, 
like the rest of us, but scarcely more than he is interested 
in many others; possessed of abundant humor and good 
humor; able to take a joke even when it is against him- 
self; and enriched with an unsurpassed gift for friend- 
ahip.^' 

It seems possible that the Autobiography will as time 
goes on be ranked with that of Franklin. These two hap- 
pened to be the most interesting Americans of their genera- 
tions, the one at the close of the eighteenth century, the 
other at the close of the nineteenth and the beginning of 
the twentieth. It must, however, be borne in mind that 
the conditions of composition of the two autobiographies 
were different. Franklin in his old age wrote out his recol- 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

lections, not for general publications, but for his children. 
Roosevelt in the midst of his career wrote his memoir 
largely to justify his poHtical actions. Possibly in this 
difference may be found the cause why Franklin's sketch of 
himself will exceed Roosevelt's in general interest, but if 
the latter were freed from the weight of the explanations of 
political matters and left with merely the passages of more 
direct autobiographical interest, it might rival Franklin's 
book in popularity. Even as it is, the Autobiography 
drew from an American critic. Professor W. P. Trent, 
the statement that it belonged ^Ho the very small group of 
books — witness Dr. Johnson — which a reasonable man 
could wish longer.'^ 

Roosevelt's Style 

Because Roosevelt wrote so much and that usually 
uhder the most unfavorable circumstances, there is the 
inpression in the minds of many that he dashed off his 
work with httle or no effort. Nothing, however, is farther 
from the truth. Roosevelt was painstaking and con- 
scientious in his WTiting not alone in those things he wrote 
with a feeling of their importance as literature but even 
in those he wrote in more or less of a routine way. When 
he was doing editorial work for The Outlook, he did articles 
with great care although knowing that in most instances 
they were ephemeral in their appeal. ^^No one knows 
how much time I put into my articles for The Outlookj^ 
he once said to a friend. Then, pulHng a manuscript 
from his pocket, he continued, ^^Here is an article that I 
am going over, as' I have opportunity, correcting and 
recasting it." 

Father Zahm who accompanied Roosevelt on the 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

South African trip and who had opportunity to see his 
methods of work in writing in the field for magazine pub- 
Hcation the account of that trip, gives testimony of the 
same sort. '^Colonel Roosevelt/^ he says ^^did not by 
any means write as rapidly as is generally supposed. He 
was too careful a literary craftsman for that. Nor had he 
the facility sometimes credited to him. He put into his 
magazine work far more thought and labor than is usually 
imagined. After an article was written, he revised it care- 
fully, correcting, changing, amplifying and excising until 
certain of the pages were scarcely decipherable.^^ ^ 

This carefulness in expression extended also to his 
speeches, especially in the case of the more important. 
Mr. D. W. Lewis gives in his Life of Theodore Roosevelt an 
instance of this thorough preparation in the case of 
the important Carnegie Hall address deUvered in New 
York City, March 20th 1912. Mr. Lewis and another 
friend had been invited to Oyster Bay for a conference over 
thejnatter. Says Mr. Lewis, '^We found that the speech 
was already in manuscript form. I think the copy we 
used was the second or third revision. At any rate, the 
Colonel himself had already made numerous corrections in 
pencil.'^ Roosevelt was ready to accept criticism and take 
suggestions, — in fact almost too ready to do so, thinks 
Mr. Lewis. '^He read the typewritten sheets aloud,'' 
continues Mr. Lewis, ^^not minding in the least if one or the 
other of us interrupted him before he had completed a 
single sentence. When some time after twelve o'clock, we 
had apparently reached the end, he said: ^I shall have to 
sit up and go over this again tonight.'" 

Further interesting insight into Roosevelt's methods of 

1 Roosevelt as a Hunter-Naturalist. Outlook, 121: 438. 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

composition is given in a vivid account by Mr. F. E. 
Leupp.^ ^^Most of his original composing is done on feet, 
pacing up and down the room and dictating to a stenog- 
rapher. He does not even see how his periods hang to- 
gether till they have been reduced to typewritten form and 
the sheets laid upon his desk. Then, when an interval of 
reduced tension comes, his eye falls upon the manuscript 
and lingers there. . . . His left hand lifts the top sheet 
while the right gropes for a pen, and in a moment the 
author is quite buried in his work, annotating between the 
lines as he reads. 

^'The friend who is with him probably respects his mood 
and subsides into a sofa-corner, or warms his hands before 
the fire, or amuses himself at the window till the first force 
of absorption has spent itseK and Mr. Roosevelt hfts his 
head to remark, ^Now, here is where I beUeve I have made 
a point never before brought out,' and proceeds to read 
aloud a passage and descant upon it. If this impromptu 
enlargement transcends certain bounds, the speaker is on 
his feet again in an instant and pacing the floor as he 
talks. Sentence follows sentence from his lips like shots 
from the muzzle of a magazine-gun — all well-timed and 
well-aimed in spite of their swiftness of utterance. The 
chances are that one of them will recoil to impress its 
author afresh with its aptness, and back he will slide into 
the vacant chair to put that idea into visible form with his 
pen and wedge it in between two others. '^ 

Roosevelt's methods of composing help us to under- 
stand certain features of his style. In general it is clear 
rather than elegant, and like the man himseK, charac- 
terized by force and emphatic power rather than by 

1 The Man Roosevelt, Chapter XVII. 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

polish and rhetorical refinement. The oral method of 
composition that has been mentioned is perhaps responsi- 
ble for two of its noticeable defects, — looseness of struc- 
ture and frequent repetition. A third defect, — extrava- 
gance of statement, is probably temperamental. To quote 
again from Mr. Leupp, ^^Mr. Roosevelt fairl}^ lives in an 
atmosphere of superlatives. He will speak of a ^perfectly 
good man with a perfectly honest motive,^ where all he 
intends to say is that the man is well-meaning. He is 
^delighted' where most of us are pleased. The latest 
visitor is ^ just the very man I wanted to see,' and ^nothing 
I have heard in a long time has interested me so much/ 
is the passing bit of information. A fourth defect, en- 
countered occasionally, is some slight grammatical lapse — 
a too great use, perhaps, of the split infinitive, an ambigu- 
ous use of pronouns or participles, or some other careless- 
ness in sjmtactical matters. These, however, are simply 
evidences that Roosevelt rated the expressiveness of 
language above its correctness, and he would have been 
ready to take refuge behind the words of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, ^Whenever by small grammatical neghgence the 
energy of an idea can be condensed or a word be made to 
stand for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor in con- 
tempt,' or the remark of Henry Ward Beecher to the 
person who was speaking of grammatical faults in one of 
Beecher's sermons, ^ Young man, when the English lan- 
guage gets in my way it doesn't stand a chance.'" 

But what stamps any writer as great is not freedom from 
faults but abundance of powers. Roosevelt's stjde has its 
positive excellencies. Foremost of all, it possesses the 
quality of energy and vividness. He always shows the 
artist's eye for the concrete and picturesque, and avails 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

himself of this gift not only in his narrative writings but as 
well in his essays and speeches. At times the reader be- 
comes conscious of a great pent-up force of feeling and en- 
thusiasm expressing itself in some striking and eloquent 
passage such as those which may be found in several of the 
selections in this book. He had also the gift of terse, 
epigrammatic expression which gave currency to many of 
his expressions in a widespread degree that was most 
remarkable. Sometimes he would dredge up from the 
past a word or phrase and give it modern use. An instance 
is the expression ^^ muck-raking.^^ This was as old as 
Pilgrim'' s Progress, but it was Roosevelt\s use of the word 
that put it into everybody's vocabulary. More frequently 
the words or phrases were of his own coinage. '^Male- 
factors of great wealth/' 'Hhe big stick/' and '^ weasel 
words" are a few samples of the dozens of such expressions 
that might be given. 

A fitting close to these remarks on Roosevelt's style is 
the comment made by Professor Trent of the EngUsh de- 
partment of Columbia University in a review of The 
Winning of the West: ^^ When he is at his best, Mr. Roose- 
velt writes as well as any man need desire to write, who 
is not aiming at that elusive glory of being considered a 
master of style. The truth of this statement will be plain 
to any one who will take the trouble to analyze the im- 
pression made by a rapid reading of the chapter describ- 
ing the fight at King's Mountain. The effect can be 
summed up in a brief sentence — You are at the battle. 
Surely this is a better test of the quality of a man's style 
than can ever be furnished by minute rhetorical analysis, 
which would, I suspect, convict Mr. Roosevelt of offences 
at which a pedant would shake his head." 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

Bibliography 

ROOSEVELTS BOOKS 

The Naval War of 1812 (1882) . 

Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885). 

Life of Thomas Hart Benton (1887). 

The Wilderness Hunter (1887). 

Life of Gouverneur Morris (1888). 

Ranch Life and Hunting Trail (1888). 

Essays on Practical Politics (1888). 

The Winning of the West, 4 vols. (1889-1896). 

New York City. A History (1891). 

American Big Game Hunting (with George Bird Grinnell) 

(1893). 
Claws and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains (1894). 
Hero Tales from American History (with Henry Cabot 

Lodge) (1895). 
Hunting in Many Lands (with George Bird Grinnell) 

(1895). 
American Ideals (1897, enlarged 1907). 
The Rough Riders (1898). 
The Strenuous Life (1900). 
Oliver Cromwell (1901). 
Addresses and Presidential Messages (1904). 
The Beer Family (1902). 

Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter (1906). 
Good Hunting (1907). 
African Game Trails (1910). 
Realizable Ideals (1912). 

Conservation of Womanhood and Childhood (1912). 
History as Literature (1913). 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

Theodore Roosevelt^ An Autobiography (1913). 
Life Histories of African Game Animals y 2 vols. (1914). 
Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914). 
America and the World War (1915). 
A Booklover^s Holidays in the Open (1916). 
Fear God and Take Your Oivn Part (1916). 
The Great Adventure (1917). 

Theodore RooseveWs Letters to his Children (edited by J. B. 
Bishop) (1919). 

BIOGRAPHIES OF ROOSEVELT 

Douglas, G. W., The Many-Sided Roosevelt. 

Hagedorn, H., Boy's Life of Roosevelt. 

Iglehart, F. C, Theodore Roosevelt: The Alan as I Knew 

Him. 
Leupp, F. E., The Man Roosevelt. 
Morgan, J., Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and the Man. 
Lewis, W. D., The Life of Theodore Roosevelt. 
Riis, J. A., Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen. 
Street, J. L., The Most Interesting American, 
Thayer, W. R., Theodore Roosevelt. 
Thwing, E., Theodore Roosevelt. 
Washburn, C. G., Theodore Roosevelt, the Logic of his 

Career. 

MAGAZINE ARTICLES RELATING TO ROOSEVELT 

The following selections from the magazine writing 
about Roosevelt give interesting details about various 
aspects of his career: 



IN TROD UCTION xxxvii 

The Man 

*' Roosevelt — A Character Sketch'^ (Julian Ralph), Review 

of Reviews^ Vol. 12, page 159. 
'^ Estimate of Roosevelf (G. Horton), Reader , Vol. 4, 

page 19. 
^^ Keynote of Roosevelt's Character '' (B. Oilman), Review 

of Reviews y Vol. 46, page 303. 
*' Characterization of Roosevelt's Personal Qualities" 

(Mark Sullivan), Collier's Weekly, Vol. 42, page 21. 
'^Theodore Roosevelt'^ (A. R. Colquhoun), Fortnightly 

Review, Vol. 93, page 832. 
V "The Personahty of Roosevelt" (W. G. Brown), Inde- 

'pendent, Vol. 55, page 1547. 
''Roosevelt in Retrospect" (M. F. Egan), Atlantic 

Monthly, Vol. 123, page 676. 
''Theodore Roosevelt" (C. G. Washburn), Harvard Grad- 
uate's Magazine, Vol. 27, page 451. 
"My Neighbor, Theodore Roosevelt" (H. Garland), 

Everybody's Magazine, Vol. 41, page 9. 



The Politician 

"Roosevelt as a Practical Politician" (Brander Mat- 
thews), Outlook, Vol. 122, page 433. 

"Roosevelt, A Force for Righteousness" (W. A. White), 
McC lure's Magazine, Vol. 28, page 386. 

"President Roosevelt" (H. T. Peck), Bookman, Vol. 23, 
page 300. 

"Theodore Roosevelt and his Times Shown in his Own 
Letters" (J. B. Bishop), Scribner's Magazine, Vol. 66, 
pages 257, 385, 515, 650. 



xxxviii IN TROD UCTION 

''High Lights of Roosevelt^s Two Administrations" 

(Anon.), Century, Vol. 77, page 954. 
^^ Roosevelt the PoKtician'^ (F. E. Leupp), Atlantic 

Monthly, Vol. 109, page 843. 
'^ Theodore Roosevelt and His Times" (H. H. Howland), 

Independent, Vol. 97, page 83. 
'^Roosevelt and the National Psychology" (Stuart P. 

Sherman), Nation, Vol. 109, page 599. 

The Out-of-Doors Man 

'^Roosevelt — Cowboy and Ranchman" (W. T. Dantz), 

Harper's Weekly, Vol. 48, page 1212. 
''Roosevelt as an Outdoor Man" (H. B. Needham), Mc- 

Clure's Magazine, Vol. 36, page 231. 
''Roosevelt the Athlete" (A. Day), Putnam's Magazine, 

Vol. 4, page 659. 
"Roosevelt the Greatest Outdoor Man" (A. K. Will- 
young), Outing, Vol. 74, pages 273, 355; Vol. 75, 

page 21. 
"Roosevelt the Husbandman" (H. J. Forman), Review of 

Reviews, Vol. 42, page 173. 
"Roosevelt as a Volunteer Soldier" (H. E. Armstrong), 

Independent, Vol. 53, page 2277. 

The Naturalist 

"Colonel Roosevelt as an Explorer" (V. Stepansson), 

Review of Reviews, Vol. 59, page 165. 
"Theodore Roosevelt as a Hunter Naturalist" (Father 

Zahm), Outlook, Vol. 121, page 434. 
"The Wilderness Hunter" (Anon.), Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 

75, page 286. 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

*' Camping with Roosevelf (John Burroughs), Atlantic 
Monthly J Vol. 97, page 585. 

'^ Roosevelt as Nature-lover and Observer'^ (John Bur- 
roughs), Outlook, Vol. 86, page 547. 

"Roosevelt as an Explorer'' (Anon.), LittelVs Living Age, 
Vol. 282, page 189. 

'^Theodore Roosevelt as a Naturalist'' (H. H. Johnston), 
LittelVs Living Age, Vol. 281, page 373. 

''Roosevelt's Visit to South America" (Father Zahm), 
Review of Reviews, Vol. 50, page 81. 

The Writer 

''Man of Letters in the White House" (J. B. Gilder), 

Critic, Vol. 39, page 401. 
"Roosevelt as a Man of Letters" (H. A. Beers), Yale 

Review, Vol. 8, page 694. 
"Writings of Roosevelt" (G. R. Johnston), Book Buyer, 

Vol. 18, page 5. 
"Roosevelt as a Journalist" (Lyman Abbott), Outlook, 

Vol. 107, page 642. 
"Mr. Roosevelt as a Letter Writer" (J. B. Gilder), BelU 

man, Vol. 26, page 103. 
"Roosevelt as a Historian" (W. P. Trent), Forum, Vol. 21, 

page 566. 
"Roosevelt as a Reader" (Anon.), Century Magazine, 

Vol. 69, page 951. 



ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 



EOOSEVELT^S WRITINGS 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

BOYHOOD AND YOUTH ^ 

On October 27, 1858, I was born at No. 28 East Twen- 
tieth Street, New York City, in the house in which we 
Uved during the time that my two sisters and my brother 
and I were small children. It was furnished in the canon- 
ical taste of the New York which George William Curtis° 5 
described in the ^^Potiphar Papers. '^ The black hair- 
cloth furniture in the dining-room scratched the bare 
legs of the children when they sat on it. The middle 
room was a library, with tables, chairs, and bookcases of 
gloomy respectability. It was without windows, and so lo 
was available only at night. The front room, the parlor, 
seemed to us children to be a room of much splendor, but 
was open for general use only on Sunday evening or on 
rare occasions when there were parties. The Sunday 
evening family gathering was the redeeming feature in a is 
day which otherwise we children did not enjoy — chiefly 
because we were all of us made to wear clean clothes and 
keep neat. The ornaments of that parlor I remember now, 
including the gas chandeUer decorated with a great quan- 

^ This and the succeeding autobiographical selections are 
reprinted from Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography, by 
permission of Mrs. Roosevelt and the holder of the copyright, 
the Macmillan Company. 

1 



2 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

tity of cut-glass prisms. These prisms struck me as possess- 
ing peculiar magnificence. One of them fell off one day, 
and I hastily grabbed it and stowed it away, passing several 
days of furtive delight in the treasure, a delight always 
5 alloyed with fear that I would be found out and con- 
victed of larceny. There was a Swiss wood-carving rep- 
resenting a very big hunter on one side of an exceedingly 
small mountain, and a herd of chamois, disproportion- 
ately small for the hunter and large for the mountain, 

10 just across the ridge. This always fascinated us; but 
there was a small chamois kid for which we felt agonies 
lest the hunter might come on it and kill it. There was 
also a Russian moujik ° drawing a gilt sledge on a piece of 
malachite. ° Some one mentioned in my hearing that 

15 malachite was a valuable marble. This fixed in my mind 
that it was valuable exactly as diamonds are valuable. 
I accepted that moujik as a priceless work of art, and it 
was not until I was well in middle age that it occurred to 
me that I w^as mistaken. 

20 The sumtmers we spent in the country, now at one place 
now at another. We children of course loved the country 
beyond anything. We disliked the city. We were always 
wildly eager to get to the country when spring came, and 
very sad when in the late fall the family moved back to 

25 towm. In the country we of course had all kinds of pets — • 
cats, dogs, rabbits, a coon, and a sorrel Shetland pony 
named General Grant. When my younger sister first 
heard of the real General Grant,° by the way, she was 
much struck by the coincidence that some one should 

30 have given him the same name as the pony. (Thirty 
3^ears later my own children had their pony Grant.) In 
the country we children ran barefoot much of the time, 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 3 

and the seasons went by in a round of uninterrupted and 
enthralling pleasures — supervising the haying and har- 
vesting, picking apples, hunting frogs successfully and 
woodchucks unsuccessfully, gathering hickory-nuts and 
chestnuts for sale to patient parents, building wigwams 5 
in the woods, and sometimes playing Indians in too real- 
istic manner by staining ourselves (and incidentally our 
clothes) in Uberal fashion with poke-cherry juice. Thanks- 
giving was an appreciated festival, but it in no way came 
up to Christmas. Christmas was an occasion of literally lo 
dehrious joy. In the evening we hung up our stockings — 
or rather the biggest stockings we could borrow from the 
grown-ups — and before dawn we trooped in to open them 
while sitting on father's and mother's bed; and the bigger 
presents were arranged, those for each child on its own 15 
table, in the drawing-room, the doors to which were thrown 
open after breakfast. I never knew any one else have what 
seemed to me such attractive Christmases, and in the next 
generation I tried to reproduce them exactly for my own 
children. ' 20 

My father, Theodore Roosevelt, ° was the best man I 
ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gen- 
tleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not 
tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, 
cowardice, or untruthfulness. As we grew older he made 25 
us understand that the same standard of clean living was 
demanded for the boys as for the girls; that what was 
wrong in a woman could not be right in a man. With 
great love and patience, and the most understanding sym- 
pathy and consideration, he combined insistence on so 
discipline. He never physically punished me but once, but 
he was the only man of whom I was ever really afraid. 



4 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

I do not mean that it was a wrong fear, for he was entirely 
just, and we children adored him. We used to wait in the 
evening until we could hear his key rattling in the latch 
of the front hall, and then rush out to greet him; and we 
5 would troop into his room while he was dressing, to stay 
there as long as we were permitted, eagerly examining 
anything which came out of his pockets which could be 
regarded as an attractive novelty. Every child has fixed 
in his memory various details which strike it as of grave 
10 importance. The trinkets he used to keep in a little box 
on his dressing-table we children always used to speak of 
as ^ treasures. ^^ The word, and some of the trinkets them- 
selves, passed on to the next generation. My own children, 
when small, used to troop into my room while I was dress- 
is ing, and the gradually accumulating trinkets in the '' ditty- 
box '^ — the gift of an enlisted man in the navy — always 
excited rapturous joy. On occasions of solemn festivity 
each child would receive a trinket for his or her ^^very 
own.'' My own children, when very small, by the way, 
20 enjoyed one pleasure I do not remember enjoying myself. 
When I came back from riding, the child who brought 
the bootjack would itself promptly get into the boots, and 
clump up and down the room with a delightful feeling of 
kinship with Jack of the seven-league strides. 
25 The punishing incident I have referred to happened 
when I was four years old. I bit my elder sister's arm. I 
do not remember biting her arm, but I do remember run- 
ning down to the yard, perfectly conscious that I had com- 
mitted a crime. From the yard I went into the kitchen, 
30 got some dough from the cook, and crawled under the 
kitchen table. In a minute or two my father entered 
from the yard and asked where I was. The warm-hearted 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 5 

Irish cook had a characteristic contempt for '^nformers/^ 
but although she said nothing she compromised between 
informing and her conscience by casting a look under the 
table. My father immediately darted for me under the 
table. I feebly heaved the dough at him, and, having the 5 
advantage of him because I could stand up under the table, 
got a fair start for the stairs, but v/as caught halfway up 
them. The punishment that ensued fitted the crime, and 
I hope — and believe — that it did me good. 

10 
My mother, Martha Bulloch, ° was a sweet, gracious, 
beautiful Southern woman, a delightful companion and be- 
loved by everybody. She was entirely '^unreconstructed '^ ° 
to the day of her death. Her mother, my grandmother, 
one of the dearest of old ladies, lived with us, and was dis- 15 
tinctly over-indulgent to us children, being quite unable 
to harden her heart towards us even when the occasion 
demanded it. Towards the close of the Civil War, although 
a very small boy, I grew to have a partial but alert under- 
standing of the fact that the family were not one in their 20 
views about that conflict, my father being a strong Lincoln 
Republican; and once, when I felt that I had been wronged 
by maternal discipline during the day, I attempted a par- 
tial vengeance by praying with loud fervor for the success 
of the Union arms, when we all came to say our prayers 2S 
before my mother in the evening. She was not only a most 
devoted mother, but was also blessed with a strong sense 
of humor, and she was too much amused to punish me; 
but I was warned not to repeat the offense, under penalty 
of my father's being informed — he being the dispenser of 30 
serious punishment . Morning prayers were with my father. 
We used to stand at the foot of the stairs, and when father 



6 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

came down we called out, ''I speak for you and the cubby- 
hole too!'^ There were three of us young children, and 
we used to sit with father on the sofa while he conducted 
morning prayers. The place between father and the arm 

5 of the sofa we called the ^^ cubby-hole/^ The child who 
got that place we regarded as especially favored both in 
comfort and somehow or other in rank and title. The two 
who were left to sit on the much wider expanse of sofa on 
the other side of father were outsiders for the time being. 

10 My Aunt Anna, my mother's sister, lived Avith us. She 
was as devoted to us children as was my mother herself, 
and we were equally devoted to her in return. She taught 
us our lessons while we were little. She and my mother 
used to entertain us by the hour with tales of life on the 

15 Georgia plantations; of hunting fox, deer, and wildcat; 
of the long-tailed driving horses, Boone and Crockett,^ 
and of the riding horses, one of which was named Buena 
Vista° in a fit of patriotic exaltation during the Mexican 
War; and of the queer goings on in the Negi'o quarters. 

20 She knew all the ^^Br'er Rabbit'' ° stories, and I was 
brought up on them. One of my uncles, Robert Roosevelt, 
was much struck with them, and took them down from 
her dictation, pubhshing them in ^ ^ Harper's "° where 
they fell flat. This was a good many years before a genius^ 

25 arose who in ^' Uncle Remus" made the stories immortal. 

I was a sickly, delicate boy, suffered much from asthma, 
and frequently had to be taken away on trips to find a 
place where I could breathe. One of my memories is of 
30 my father walking up and down the room with me in his 
arms at night when I was a very small person, and of sit- 
ting up in bed gasping, with my father and mother trying 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH ' ?>^ 

to help me. I went very little to school. I never w^nt to 
the public schools, as my own children later did,/both at 
the ^* Cove school^' at Oyster Bay and at the ^^ Rwd school'' 
in Washington. For a few months I attended Professor 
McMullen's school in Twentieth Street near the houses 
where I was born, but most of the time I had tutors. As I 
have already said, my aunt taught me when I was small. 
At one time we had a French governess, a loved and valued 
"mam'selle,'' in the household. 

10 

While still a small boy I began to take interest in natural 
history.^ I remember distinctly the first day that I started 
on my career as zoologist. I was walking up Broadway, 
and as I passed the market to which I used sometimes to 
be sent before breakfast to get strawberries I suddenly 15 
saw a dead seal laid out on a slab of wood. That seal filled 
me with every possible feehng of romance and adventure. 
I asked where it was killed, and was informed in the harbor. 
I had already begun to read some of Mayne Reid's books ® 
and other boys' books of adventure, and I felt that this 20 
seal brought all these adventures in realistic fashion be- 
fore me. As long as that seal remained there I haunted 
the neighborhood of the market day after day. I measured 
it, and I recall that, not having a tape measure, I had 
to do my best to get its girth with a folding pocket 25 
foot-rule, a difficult undertaking. 1 carefully made 
a record of the utterly useless measurements, and at 
once began to write a natural history of my own, on 
the strength of that seal. This, and subsequent natural 
histories, were written down in blank books in simphfied 30 
spelHng wholly unpremeditated and unscientific. I had 
vague aspirations of in some way or another owning and 



8 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

preserving that seal, but they never got beyond the purely 
formless stage. I think, however, I did get the seaFs 
skull, and with two of my cousins promptly started what 
we ambitiously called the '^Roosevelt Museum of Na- 
5 tural History/' The collections were at first kept in my 
room, until a rebellion on the part of the chambermaid 
received the approval of the higher authorities of the 
household and the collection was moved up to a kind of 
bookcase in the back hall upstairs. It was the ordinary 

10 small boy's collection of curios, quite incongruous and 
entirely valueless except from the standpoint of the boy 
himself. My father and mother encouraged me warmly 
in this, as they always did in anything that would give 
me wholesome pleasure or help to develop me. 

15 The adventure of the seal and the novels of Mayne 
Reid together strengthened my instinctive interest in 
natural history. I was too young to understand much 
of Mayne Reid, excepting the adventure part and 
the natural history part — these enthralled me. But of 

20 course my reading was not wholly confined to natural 
history. There was very little effort made to compel 
me to read books, my mother and father having the 
good sense not to try to get me to read anything I did 
not like, unless it was in the way of study. I was given 

25 the chance to read books that they thought I ought 
to read, but if I did not like them I was then given some 
other good book that I did like. 

Quite unknown to myself, I was, while a boy, under 

30 a hopeless disadvantage in studying nature. I was very 

near-sighted, so that the only things I could study were 

those I ran against or stumbled over. When I was about 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 9 

thirteen I was allowed to take lessons in taxidermy from 
a Mr. Bell, a tall, clean-shaven, white-haired old gentle- 
man, as straight as an Indian, who had been a companion of 
Audubon's. ° He had a musty little shop, somewhat on 
the order of Mr. Venus's shop° in ^^Our Mutual Friend,^' a 5 
little shop in which he had done very valuable work for 
science. This ^'vocational study, '^ as I suppose it would 
be called by modern educators, spurred and directed my 
interest in collecting specimens for mounting and pres- 
ervation. It was this summer that I got m^y first gun, lo 
and it puzzled me to find that my companions seemed to 
see things to shoot at which I could not see at all. One 
day they read aloud an advertisement in huge letters on 
a distant billboard, and I then realized that something 
was the matter, for not only was I unable to read the sign is 
but I could not even see the letters. I spoke of this to 
my father, and soon afterwards got my first pair of 
spectacles, which literally opened an entirely new world 
to me. I had no idea how beautiful the world was until 
I got those spectacles. I had been a clumsy and awkward 20 
little boy, and while much of my clumsiness and awkward- 
ness was doubtless due to general characteristics, a good 
deal of it was due to the fact that I could not see and yet 
was wholly ignorant that I was not seeing. The recollection 
of this experience gives me a keen sjmipathy with those 25 
who are trying in our public schools and elsewhere to 
remove the physical causes of deficiency in children, who 
are often unjustly blamed for being obstinate or unam- 
bitious, or mentally stupid. 

This same summer, too, I obtained various new books 30 
on mammals and birds, including the publications of 
Spencer Baird°, for instance, and made an industrious book- 



10 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

study of the subject. I did not accomplish much in out- 
door study because I did not get spectacles until late in 
the fall, a short time before I started with the rest of the 
family for a second trip to Europe. ° We were living at 
sDobbs Ferry, on the Hudson. My gun was a breech- 
loading, pin-fire double-barrel, of French manufacture. It 
was an excellent gun for a clumsy and often absent-minded 
boy. There was no spring to open it, and if the mechan- 
ism became rusty it could be opened with a brick with- 
10 out serious damage. When the cartridges stuck they 
could be removed in the same fashion. If they were 
loaded, however, the result was not always happ3^, and I 
tattooed myself with partially unburned grains of powder 
more than once. 

15 

In the fall of 1876 I entered Harvard, ° graduating in 
1880. I thoroughly enjoyed Harvard, and I am sure it 
did me good, but only in the general effect, for there was 
ver}' little in my actual studies which helped me in after 

20 life. More than one of my own sons have alread}^ prof- 
ited by their friendship with certain of their masters in 
school or college. I certainly profited b}^ my friendship 
with one of my tutors, ]Mr. Cutler; ° and in Harvard I owed 
much to the professor of English, ]\Ir. A. S. Hill.° Doubt- 

25 less through my own fault, I saw almost nothing of Pres- 
ident Eliot ° and very little of the professors. I ought to 
have gained much more than I did gain from writing the 
themes and forensics.° INIy failure to do so may have 
been partly due to my taking no interest in the subjects. 

30 Before I left Harvard I was already writing one or two 
chapters of a book I afterwards published on the Naval 
War of 1812. Those chapters were so dry that they would 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 11 

have made a dictionary seem light reading by comparison. 
Still, they represented purpose and serious interest on my 
part, not the perfunctory effort to do well enough to get a 
certain mark; and corrections of them by a skilled older 
man than myself would have impressed me and haves 
commanded my respectful attention. But I was not 
sufficiently developed to make myself take an intelligent 
interest in some of the subjects assigned me — the character 
of the Gracchi,° for instance. A very clever and studious 
lad would no doubt have done so, but I personally did not lo 
grow up to this particular subject until a good many years 
later. The frigate and sloop actions between the Amer- 
ican and British sea-tigers of 1812 were much more within 
my grasp. I worked drearily at the Gracchi because I had 
to; my conscientious and much-to-be-pitied professor 15 
dragging me through the theme by main strength, with 
my feet firmly planted in dull and totally idea-proof 
resistance. 

I had at the time no idea of going into public life, and 
I never studied elocution or practiced debating. This was 20 
a loss to me in one way. In another way it was not. Per- 
sonally I have not the slightest s\Tiipathy with debating 
contests in which each side is arbitrarily assigned a given 
proposition and told to maintain it without the least refer- 
ence to whether those maintaining it believe in it or not. 1 25 
know that under our system this is necessary for lawyers, 
but I emphatically disbelieve in it as regards general dis- 
cussion of political, social, and industrial matters. What 
we need is to turn out of our colleges young men with ardent 
convictions on the side of the right; not young men whoso 
can make a good argument for either right or wrong as 
their interest bids them. The present method of carrying 



12 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

on debates on such subjects as '^Our Colonial Policy," or 
^'The Need of a Navy," or ^'The Proper Position of the 
Courts in Constitutional Questions," encourages precisely 
the wrong attitude among those who take part in them. 
5 There is no effort to instill sincerity and intensity of 
conviction. On the contrary, the net result is to make 
the contestants feel that their convictions have nothing to 
do with their arguments. T am sorry I did not study 
elocution in college; but I am exceedingly glad that I did 
10 not take part in the type of debate in which stress is laid, 
not upon getting a speaker to think rightly, but on getting 
him to talk glibly on the side to wliich he is assigned, 
without regard either to what his convictions are or to 
what they ought to be. 
15 I was a reasonably good student in college, standing just 
within the first tenth of my class, if I remember rightly; 
although I am not sure whether this means the tenth of 
the whole number that entered or of those that graduated. 
I was given a Phi Beta Kappa ° ^^key." My chief interests 
20w^ere scientific. When I entered college, I was devoted to 
out-of-doors natural history, and my ambition was to be 
a scientific man of the Audubon, or Wilson,° or Baird, or 
Coues° type — a man like Hart Merriam,^ or Franlc 
Chapman, ° or Hornaday,° to-day. My father had from 
25 the earhest days instilled into me the knowledge that I was 
to work and to make my own way in the world, and I had 
always supposed that this meant that I must enter busi- 
ness. But in my freshman year (he died when I was a 
sophomore) he told me that if I wished to become a scien- 
ce tific man I could do so. He explained that I must be sure 
- that I really intensely desired to do scientific work, because 
if I went into it I must make it a serious career; that he 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 13 

had made money enough to enable me to take up such a 
career and do non-remunerative work of value if I in- 
tended to do the very best work there was in me; but that I 
must not dream of taking it up as a dilettante. He also 
gave me a piece of advice that I have always remem-5 
bered, namely, that, if I was not going to earn money, I 
must even things up by not spending it. As he expressed 
it, I had to keep the fraction constant, and if I was not 
able to increase the numerator, then I must reduce the 
denominator. In other words, if I went into a scientific lo 
career, I must definitely abandon all thought of the enjoy- 
ment that could accompany a money-making career, 
and must find my pleasures elsewhere. 

After this conversation I fully intended to make science 
my life work. I did not, for the simple reason that at that is 
time Harvard, and I suppose our other colleges, utterly 
ignored the possibilities of the faunal naturalist, the out- 
door naturalist and observer of nature. They treated 
biology as purely a science of the laboratory and the 
microscope, a science whose adherents were to spend 20 
their time in the study of minute forms of marine life, 
or else in section-cutting and the study of the tissues of 
the higher organisms under the microscope. This attitude 
was, no doubt, in part due to the fact that in most colleges 
then there was a not always intelligent copying of what 25 
was done in the great German universities. The sound 
revolt against superficiality of study had been carried to 
an extreme; thoroughness in minutise as the only end of 
study had been erected into a fetish. There was a total 
failure to understand the great variety of kinds of work 30 
that could be done by naturalists, including what could 
be done by outdoor naturalists — the kind of work which 



14 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

Hart Merriam and his assistants in the Biological Survey- 
have carried to such a high degree of perfection as regards 
North American mammals. In the entirely proper desire 
to be thorough and to avoid shpshod methods, the tend- 

5 ency was to treat as not serious, as unscientific, any 
kind of work that was not carried on with laborious mi- 
nuteness in the laboratory. M}^ taste was specialized in 
a totally different direction, and I had no more desire or 
ability to be a microscopist and section-cutter than to 

10 be a mathematician. Accordingly I abandoned all 
thought of becoming a scientist. Doubtless this meant 
that I really did not have the intense devotion to science 
which I thought I had; for, if I had possessed such de- 
votion, I would have carved out a career for myself some- 

15 how without regard to discouragements. 

The teaching which. I received was genuinely dem- 
ocratic in one way. It was not so democratic in another. 
I grew into manhood thoroughly imbued with the feel- 
ing that a man must be respected for what he made of 

20 himself. But I had also, consciously or unconsciously, 
been taught that socially and industrially pretty much 
the whole duty of the man lay in thus making the best of 
himself; that he should be honest in his dealings with 
others and charitable in the old-fashioned way to the un- 

25 fortunate; but that it was no part of his business to join 
with others in trying to make things better for the many 
by curbing the abnormal and excessive development of 
individualism in a few. Now I do not mean that this 
training was by any means all bad. On the contrary, 

30 the insistence upon individual responsibility was, and 
is, and always will be, a prime necessity. Teaching of 



BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 15 

the kind I absorbed from both my text-books and my 
surroundings is a healthy anti-scorbutic to the senti- 
mentahty which by complacently excusing the individ- 
ual for all his shortcomings would finally hopelessly weaken 
the spring of moral purpose. It also keeps alive that 5 
virile vigor for the lack of which in the average individ- 
ual no possible perfection of law or of community action 
can ever atone. But such teaching, if not corrected by 
other teaching, means acquiescence in a riot of lawless 
business individualism which would be quite as de- lo 
structive to real civilization as the lawless military in- 
dividualism of the Dark Ages.° I left college and entered 
the big world owing more than I can express to the train- 
ing I had received, especially in my own home; but with 
much else also to learn if I were to become really fitted 15 
to do my part in the work that lay ahead for the gener- 
eration of Americans to which I belonged. 



THE VIGOR OF LIFE 

Having been a sickly boy, with no natural bodily prow- 
ess, and having lived much at home, I was at first quite 
unable to hold my own when thrown into contact with 
other boys of rougher antecedents. I was nervous and 
5 timid. Yet from reading of the people I admired — rang- 
ing from the soldiers of Valley Forge,° and Morgan^s 
riflemen,.^ to the heroes of m}^ favorite stories — and from 
hearing of the feats performed by my Southern fore- 
fathers and kinsfolk, and from knowing my father, I 

10 felt a great admiration for men who were fearless and who 
could hold their own in the world, and I had a great de- 
sire to be like them. Until I was nearly fourteen I let 
this desire take no more definite shape than day-dreams. 
Then an incident happened that did me real good. Hav- 

ising an attack of asthma, I was sent off by myself to 
Moosehead Lake.° On the stage-coach ride thither I 
encountered a couple of other boys who were about my 
own age, but ver}^ much more competent and also much 
more mischievous. I have no doubt they were good- 

20 hearted boys, but they were boys! They found that I 
was a foreordained and predestined victim, and indus- 
triously proceeded to make life miserable for me. The 
worst feature was that when I finally tried to fight them 
I discovered that either one singly could not only handle 

25 me with easy contempt, but handle me so as not to hurt 
me much and yet to prevent my doing any damage 
whatever in return. 

The experience taught me what probably no amount 
of good advice could have taught me. I made up my mind 

16 



THE VIGOR OF LIFE 17 

that I must try to learn so that I would not again be put 
in such a helpless position, and having become quickly 
and bitterly conscious that I did not have the natural 
prowess to hold my own, I decided that I would try to 
supply its place by training. Accordingly, with my 5 
father^s hearty approval, I started to learn to box. I was 
a painfully slow and awkward pupil, and certainly worked 
two or three years before I made any perceptible improve- 
ment whatever. My first boxing master was John Long, 
an ex-prize-fighter. I can see his rooms now, with colored lO 
pictures of the fights between Tom Hyer and Yankee 
Sullivan, and Heenan° and Sayers, and other great events 
in the annals of the squared circle. On one occasion, to 
excite interest among his patrons, he held a series of ^^cham- 
pionship'' matches for the different weights, the prizes is 
being, at least in my own class, pewter mugs of a value, I 
should suppose, approximating fifty cents. Neither he nor 
I had any idea that I could do anything, but I was entered 
in the lightweight contest, in which it happened that I was 
pitted in succession against a couple of reedy striplings 20 
who were even worse than I was. Equally to their sur- 
prise and to my own, and to John Long's, I won, and the 
pewter mug became one of my most prized possessions. 
I kept it, and alluded to it, and I fear bragged about it, 
for a number of years, and I only wish I knew where it 25 
was now. Years later I read an account of a little man 
who once in a fifth-rate handicap race won a worthless 
pewter medal and joyed in it ever after. Well, as soon as 
I read that story I felt that that little man and I were 
brothers. 30 

This was, as far as I remember, the only one of my ex- 
ceedingly rare athletic triumphs which would be worth . 



18 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

relating. I did a good deal of boxing and wrestling in 
Harvard, but never attained to the first rank in either, 
even at my own weight. Once, in the big contests in the 
Gym, I got either into the finals or semi-finals, I forget 
5 which; but aside from this the chief part I played was to 
act as trial horse for some friend or classmate who did 
have a chance of distinguishing himself in the champion- 
ship contests. 

I was fond of horseback-riding, but I took to it slowly 

10 and with difficulty, exactly as with boxing. It was a 
long time before I became even a respectable rider, 
and I never got much higher. I mean by this that I 
never became a first-flight man in the hunting field, and 
never even approached the bronco-busting class in the 

15 West. Any man, if he chooses, can gradually school 
himself to the requisite nerve, and gradually learn the 
requisite seat and hands, that will enable him to do re- 
spectably across country, or to perform the average work 
on a ranch. Of my ranch experiences I shall speak later. 

20 I was fond of walking and climbing. As a lad I used to 
go to the north woods, in Maine, both in fall and winter. 
There I made life friends of two men. Will Dow and 
Bill Sewall: I canoed with them, and tramped through 
the woods with them, visiting the winter logging camps 

25 on snow-shoes. Afterward they were with me in the 
West. Will Dow is dead. Bill Sewall was collector of 
customs under me, on the Aroostook° border. Except 
when hunting I never did any mountaineering save for 
a couple of conventional trips up the Matterhorn° and 

30 the Jungfrau° on one occasion when I was in Switzerland. 
I never did much with the shotgun, but I practiced a 



THE VIGOR OF LIFE 19 

good deal with the rifle. I had a rifle range at Saga- 
more Hill,° where I often took friends to shoot. Once 
or twice when I was visited by parties of released Boer 
prisoners, after the close of the South African War,^ 
they and I held shooting matches together. The bests 
man with both pistol and rifle who ever shot there was 
Stewart Edward White.° 

My own experience as regards marksmanship was 
much the same as my experience as regards horseman- 
ship. There are men whose eye and hand are so quick lo 
and so sure that they achieve a perfection of marksman- 
ship to which no practice will enable ordinary men to 
attain. There are other men who cannot learn to shoot 
with any accuracy at all. In between come the mass of 
men of ordinary abilities who, if they choose resolutely is 
to practice, can by sheer industry and judgment make 
themselves fair rifle shots. The men who show this 
requisite industry and judgment can without special 
difficulty raise themselves to the second class of re- 
spectable rifle shots; and it is to this class that I belong. 20 
But to have reached this point of marksmanship with the 
rifle at a target by no means implies ability to hit game in 
the field, especially dangerous game. All kinds of other 
qualities, moral and physical, enter into being a good 
hunter, and especially a good hunter after dangerous 25 
game, just as all kinds of other qualities in addition to 
skill with the rifle enter into being a good soldier. With 
dangerous game, after a fair degree of efficiency with the 
rifle has been attained, the prime requisites are cool 
judgment and that kind of nerve which consists in avoid- 30 
ing being rattled. Any beginner is apt to have ^'buck 



20 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

fever/' ° and therefore no beginner should go at dangerous 
game. 

I have shot only kinds of animals which could fairly 
be called dangerous game — that is, the lion, elephant, 
5 rhinoceros and buffalo in Africa, and the big grizzly bear 
a quarter of a century ago in the Rockies. Taking into 
account not only my own personal experience, but the 
experiences of many veteran hunters, I regard all the four 
African animals, but especially the lion, elephant, and 
10 buffalo, as much more dangerous than the grizzly. As 
it happened, however, the only narrow escape I person- 
ally ever had was from a grizzly, and in Africa the animal 
killed closest to me as it was charging was a rhinoceros — 
all of which goes to show that a man must not general- 
is ize too broadly from his own personal experiences. On 
the whole, I think the lion the most dangerous of all these 
five animals; that is, I think that, if fairly hunted, there is 
a larger percentage of hunters killed or mauled for a 
given number of lions killed than for a given number 
20 of any one of the other animals. Yet I personally had 
no difficulties with lions. I twice killed lions which 
were at bay and just starting to charge, and I killed a 
heavy-maned male while it was in full charge. But in 
each instance I had plenty of leeway, the animal being 
25 so far off that even if my bullet had not been fatal I 
should have had time for a couple of more shots. The 
African buffalo is undoubtedly a dangerous beast, but 
it happened that the few that I shot did not charge. A 
bull elephant, a vicious ^^ rogue,'' which had been kilHng 
30 people in the native villages, did charge before being shot at. 
My son Kermit and I stopped it at forty yards. Another 



THE VIGOR OF LIFE 21 

bull elephant, also unwounded, which charged, nearly got 
me, as I had just fired both cartridges from my heavy 
double-barreled rifle in killing the bull I was after — the 
first wild elephant I had ever seen. The second bull came 
through the thick brush to my left like a steam plows 
through a light snowdrift, everything snapping before 
his rush, and was so near that he could have hit me with 
his trunk. I slipped past him behind a tree. People 
have asked me how I felt on this occasion. My answer 
has always been that I suppose I felt as most men of ic 
like experience feel on such occasions. At such a moment 
a hunter is so very busy that he has no time to get fright- 
ened. He wants to get in his cartridges and try another 
shot. 

Rhinoceros are truculent, blustering beasts, much is 
the most stupid of all the dangerous game I know. Gen- 
erally their attitude is one of mere stupidity and bluff. 
But on occasions they do charge wickedly, both when 
wounded and when entirely unprovoked. The first I ever 
shot I mortall}^ wounded at a few rods^ distance, and it 20 
charged with the utmost determination, whereat I and 
my companion both fired, and more by good luck than 
anything else brought it to the ground just thirteen 
paces from where we stood. Another rhinoceros may or 
may not have been meaning to charge me; I have never 25 
been certain which. It heard us and came at us through 
rather thick brush, snorting and tossing its head. I 
am by no means sure that it had fixedly hostile inten- 
tions, and indeed with my present experience I think it 
likely that if I had not fired it would have flinched at 30 
the last moment and either retreated or gone by me. But 
I am not a rhinoceros mind reader, and its actions were 



22 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

such as to warrant my regarding it as a suspicious char- 
acter. I stopped it with a couple of bullets, and then 
followed it up and killed it. The skins of all these animals 
which I thus killed are in the National Museum at Wash- 
5 ington. 

When obliged to live in cities, I for a long time found 
that boxing and wrestling enabled me to get a good deal 
of exercise in condensed and attractive form. I was 
reluctantly obliged to abandon both as I grew older. 

10 1 dropped the wrestling earliest. When I became Gov- 
ernor,° the champion middleweight wrestler of America 
happened to be in Albany, and I got him to come round 
three or four afternoons a week. Incidentally I may men- 
tion that his presence caused me a difficulty with the 

15 Comptroller, who refused to audit a bill I put in for a 
wrestling-mat, explaining that I could have a billiard- 
table, billiards being recognized as a proper Guber- 
natorial amusement, but that a wrestling-mat sjnnbol- 
ized something unusual and unheard of and could not 

20 be permitted. The middleweight champion was of 
course so much better than I was that he could not only 
take care of himself but of me too and see that I was 
not hurt — for wrestling is a much more violent amuse- 
ment than boxing. But after a couple of months he had 

25 to go away, and he left as a substitute a good-humored, 
stalwart professional oarsman. The oarsman turned out 
to know very little about wresthng. He could not even 
take care of himself, not to speak of me. By the end of our 
second afternoon one of his long ribs had been caved in and 

30 two of my short ribs badly damaged, and my left shoulder- 
blade so nearly shoved out of place that it creaked. He 



THE VIGOR OF LIFE 23 

was nearly as pleased as I when I told him I thought we 
would ^Wote the war a failure '^ and abandon wrestling. 
After that I took up boxing again. While President I 
used to box with some of the aides, as well as play single- 
stick° with General Wood.° After a few years I had to 5 
abandon boxing as well as wrestling, for in one bout a 
young captain of artillery cross-countered me on the 
eye, and the blow smashed the little blood-vessels. For- 
tunately it was my left eye, but the sight has been dim 
ever since, and if it had been the right ej^e, I should have lo 
been entirely unable to shoot. Accordingly I thought it 
better to acknowledge that I had become an elderly man 
and would have to stop boxing. I then took up jiu-jitsu° 
for a year or two. 

I have mentioned all these experiences, and I could is 
mention scores of others, because out of them grew my 
philosophy — perhaps they were in part caused by my 
philosophy — of bodily vigor as a method of getting that 
vigor of soul without which vigor of the body counts for 
nothing. The dweller in cities has less chance than the 20 
dweller in the country to keep his body sound and vig- 
orous. But he can do so, if only he will take the trouble. 
Any young law\^er, shopkeeper, or clerk, or shop-assist- 
ant, can keep himself in good condition if he tries. Some 
of the best men who have ever served under me in the 25 
National Guard and in my regiment were former clerks 
or floor- walkers. Why, Johnny Hayes, ° the Marathon 
victor, and at one time world champion, one of my val- 
ued friends and supporters, was a floor-walker in Bloom- 
ingdale's big department store. Surely with Johnny 30 
Haye3 (is an exair.ple, any 3^oung man in a city can 



24 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

hope to make his body all that a vigorous man^s body 
should be. 

I once made a speech to which I gave the title ^^The 
Strenuous Life/' ° Afterwards I published a volume of 
5 essays with this for a title. There were two transla- 
tions of it which always especially pleased me. One was 
by a Japanese soldier who knew English well, and who 
had carried the essay all through the Manchurian° cam- 
paign, and later translated it for the benefit of his country- 

10 men. The other was by an Italian lady, whose brother, 
an officer in the Italian army who had died on duty in a 
foreign land, had also greatly liked the article and carried 
it round with him. In translating the title the lady 
rendered it in Italian as ^^ Vigor di Vita.'' I thought 

15 this translation a great improvement on the original, 
and have always wished that I had myself used ^^The 
Vigor of Life'' as a heading to indicate what I was 
trying to preach, instead of the heading I actually did 
use. 

20 There are two kinds of success, or rather two kinds of 
ability displayed in the achievement of success. There 
is, first, the success either in big things or small things 
which comes to the man who has in him the natural 
power to do what no one else can do, and what no 

25 amount of training, no perseverance or will power, will 
enable any ordinary man to do. This success, of course, 
like every other kind of success, may be on a very big 
scale or on a small scale. The quality which the man 
possesses may be that which enables him to run a 

30 hundred yards in nine and three-fifths seconds, or to 
play ten separate games of chess at the same time 
bhndfolded, or to add five columns of figures at once 



THE VIGOR OF LIFE 25 

without effort, or to write the '^Ode to a Grecian 
Urn," ° or to deUver the Gettysburg speech,^ or to 
show the ability of Frederick ° at Leuthen or Nelson ° 
at Trafalgar. No amount of training of body or mind 
would enable any good ordinary man to perform any one 5 
of these feats. Of course the proper performance of each 
implies much previous study or training, but in no one 
of them is success to be attained save by the altogether 
exceptional man who has in him the something additional 
which the ordinary man does not have. lo 

This is the most striking kind of success, and it can be 
attained only by the man who has in him the quality 
which separates him in kind no less than in degree from 
his fellows. But much the commoner t3rpe of success in 
every walk of life and in every species of effort is that is 
which comes to the man who differs from his fellows not 
by the kind of quality which he possesses but by the 
degree of development which he has given that quaUty. 
This kind of success is open to a large number of persons, 
if only they seriously determine to achieve it. It is the 20 
kind of success which is open to the average man of 
sound body and fair mind, who has no remarkable men- 
tal or physical attributes, but who gets just as much as 
possible in the way of work out of the aptitudes that he 
does possess. It is the only kind of success that is open 25 
to most of us. Yet some of the greatest successes in his- 
tory have been those of this second class — ^when I call 
it second class I am not running it down in the least, I 
am merely pointing out that it differs in kind from the 
first class. To the average man it is probably more use- 3a 
ful to study this second type of success than to study the 
first. From the study of the first he can learn inspira- 



26 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

tion, he can get uplift and lofty enthusiasm. From the 
study of the second he can, if he chooses, find out how to 
win a similiar success himself. 

I need hardly say that all the successes I have ever won 
shave been of the second type. I never won anything 
without hard labor and the exercise of my best judgment 
and careful planning and working long in advance. Hav- 
ing been a rather sickly and awkward boy, I was as a 
young man at first both nervous and distrustful of my 

10 own prowess. I had to train myself painfully and labo- 
riously not merely as regards my body but as regards my 
soul and spirit. 

When a boy I read a passage in one of Marryat's 
books" which always impressed me. In this passage the 

15 captain of some small British man-of-war is explaining 
to the hero how to acquire the quality of fearlessness. 
He says that at the outset almost every man is fright- 
ened when he g'oes into action, but that the course to 
follow is for the man to keep such a grip on himself that 

20 he can act just as if he was not frightened. After this is 
kept up long enough it changes from pretense to reality, 
and the man does in very fact become fearless by sheer 
dint of practicing fearlessness when he does not feel it. 
(I am using my own language, not Marryat's.) This 

25 was the theory upon which I went. There were all 
kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging 
from grizzly bears to *'mean'^ horses and gun-fighters; 
but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased 
to be afraid. Most men can have the same experience if 

30 they choose. They will first learn to bear themselves well 
in trials which they anticipate and school themselves 
in advance to meet. After a while the habit will grow on 



THE VIGOR OF LIFE 27 

them, and they will behave well in sudden and unex- 
pected emergencies which come upon them unawares. 

It is of course much pleasanter if one is naturally 
fearless, and I envy and respect the men who are nat- 
urally fearless. But it is a good thing to remember that 5 
the man who does not enjoy this advantage can never- 
theless stand beside the man who does, and can do his 
duty with the like efficiency, if he chooses to. Of course he 
must not let his desire take the form merely of a day- 
dream. Let him dream about being a fearless man, lo 
and the more he dreams the better he will be, always 
provided he does his best to realize the dream in prac- 
tice. He can do his part honorablj^ and well provided 
only he sets fearlessness before himself as an ideal, schools 
himself to think of danger merely as something to be is 
faced and overcome, and regards life itself as he should 
regard it, not as something to be thrown away, but as a 
pawn to be promptly hazarded whenever the hazard 
is warranted by the larger interests of the great game in 
which we are all engaged. 20 



ENTERING POLITICS^ 

When I left Harvard, I took up the study of law. If I 

had been sufficiently fortunate to come under Professcy 

Thayer,° of the Harvard Law School, it may well be that 

I would have realized that the lawyer can do a great 

5 work for justice and against legalism. 

But, doubtless chiefly through my own fault, some of 
the teaching of the law books and of the class-room 
seemed to me to be against justice. The caveat emptor^ side 
of the law, like the caveat emptor side of business, seemed 

10 to me repellent; it did not make for social fair deahng. 
The ^^let the buyer beware^' maxim, when translated 
into actual practice, whether in law or business, tends 
to translate itself further into the seller making his profit 
at the expense of the buyer, instead of by a bargain 

15 which shall be to the profit of both. It did not seem to 
me that the law was framed to discourage as it should 
sharp practice, and all other kinds of bargains except 
those which are fair and of benefit to both sides. I was 
young; there was much in the judgment which I then 

20 formed on this matter which I should now revise; but, 
then as now, many of the big corporation lawyers, to 
whom the ordinary members of the bar then as now 
looked up, held certain standards which were difficult to 
recognize as compatible with the idealism I suppose every 

25 high-minded young man is apt to feel. If I had been obliged 
to earn every cent I spent, I should have gone whole- 
heartedly into the business of making both ends meet, 
and should have taken up the law or any other respect- 
able occupation — ^for I then held, and now hold, the be- 

28 



ENTERING POLITICS 29 

lief that a man^s first duty is to pull his own weight and 
to take care of those dependent upon him; and I then 
believed, and now believe, that the greatest privilege and 
greatest duty for any man is to be happily married, and 
that no other form of success or service, for either man or 5 
woman, can be wisely accepted as a substitute or alter- 
native. But it happened that I had been left enough 
money by my father not to make it necessary for me to 
think solely of earning bread for myself and family. I had 
enough to get bread. What I had to do, if I wanted butter lo 
and jam, was to provide the butter and jam, but to count 
their cost as compared with other things. In other words, 
I made up my mind that, while I must earn money, I 
could afford to make earning money the secondary 
instead of the primary object of my career. If I had had no is 
money at all, then my first duty would have been to earn 
it in any honest fashion. As I had some money, I felt 
that my need for more money was to be treated as a 
secondary need, and that while it was my business to 
make more money where I legitimately and properly 2 a 
could, yet that it was also my business to treat other 
kinds of work as more important than money-making. 
Almost immediately after leaving Harvard in 1880 I 
began to take an interest in politics. I did not then be- 
lieve, and I do not now believe, that any man should 25 
ever attempt to make poHtics his only career. It is a 
dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his 
whole livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his 
staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being 
of real service to the people while in office, and always 30 
puts him under the heaviest strain of pressure to barter 
his convictions for the sake of holding ofl&ce. A man 



30 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

should have some other occupation — I had several other 
occupations — to which he can resort if at any time he 
is thrown out of office, or at any time he finds it necessary 
to choose a course which will probably result in his being 
5 thrown out, unless he is willing to stay in at cost to his 
conscience. 

I was elected to the Legislature ® in the fall of 1881 and 
found myself the youngest man in that body. I was 
re-elected the two following years. Like all young men 

10 and inexperienced members, I had considerable diffi- 
culty in teaching myself to speak. I profited much by 
the advice of a hard-headed old countryman — who was 
unconsciously paraphrasing the Duke of Wellington,"^ 
who was himself doubtless paraphrasing somebody else. 

15 The advice ran: ^' Don't speak until you are sure you 
have something to say, and know just what it is; then 
say it, and sit down.'^ 

My first days in the Legislature were much like those of 
a boy in a strange school. My fellow-legislators and I eyed 

20 one another with mutual distrust. Each of us chose his 
seat, each began by following the lead of some veteran in 
the first routine matters, and then, in a week or two, we 
began to drift into groups according to our several af- 
finities. The Legislature was Democratic. I was a 

25 Republican from the ^^silk stocking'' district, the wealth- 
iest district in New York, and I was put, as one of the 
minority members, on the Committee of Cities. It was 
a coveted position. I did not make any effort to get 
on, and, as far as I know, was put there merely because 

30 it was felt to be in accordance with the fitness of 
things. 



ENTERING POLITICS ai 

My closest friend for the three years I was there was 
Billy O'Neill, from the Adirondacks. He kept a small 
crossroads store. He was a young man, although a few 
years older than I was, and, like myself, had won his 
position without regard to the machine. He had thought 5 
he would like to be Assemblyman, so he had taken 
his buggy and had driven around Franklin County 
visiting everybody, had upset the local ring, and came 
to the Legislature as his own master. There is surely 
something in American traditions that does tend to- lo 
ward real democracy in spite of our faults and short- 
comings. In most other countries two men of as dif- 
ferent antecedents, ancestry, and surroundings as Billy 
O'Neill and I would have had far more difficulty in coming 
together. I came from the biggest city in America and is 
from the wealthiest ward of that city, and he from a back- 
woods county where he kept a store at a crossroads. In all 
the unimportant things we seemed far apart. But in 
all the important things we were close together. We 
looked at all questions from substantially the same 20 
\dew-point, and we stood shoulder to shoulder in every 
legislative fight during those three years. He abhorred 
demagogy just as he abhorred corruption. He had 
thought much on political problems; he admired Alex- 
ander Hamilton^ as much as I did, being a strong be- 25 
Hever in a powerful National government; and we both 
of us differed from Alexander Hamilton in being stout 
adherents of Abraham Lincoln's views wherever the 
rights of the people were concerned. Any man who has 
met with success, if he will be frank with himself, must 30 
admit that there has been a big element of fortune in 
the success. Fortune favored me, whereas her hand was 



32 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

heavy against Billy O'Neill. All his life he had to strive 
hard to wring his bread from harsh surroundings and a 
reluctant fate; if fate had been but a httle kinder, I be- 
lieve he would have had a great political career; and he 
5 would have done good service for the country in any 
position in which he might have been put. 

In the Legislature the problems with which I dealt 
were mainly problems of honesty and decency and of 
legislative and adminisistrative efficiency. They rep- 

10 resented the effort, the wise, the vitally necessary effort, 
to get efficient and honest government. But as yet I 
understood little of the effort which was already be- 
ginning, for the most part under very bad leadership, to 
secure a more genuine social and industrial justice. Nor 

15 was I especially to blame for this. The good citizens I 
then knew best, even when themselves men of limited 
means — men like my colleague Billy O'Neill, and my 
backwoods friends Sewall and Dow — were no more 
awake than I was to the changing needs the changing 

20 times were bringing. Their outlook was as narrow as 
my own, and, within its limits, as fundamentally sound. 

I wish to dwell on the soundness of our outlook on life, 
even though as 3^et it was not broad enough. We V^ere 
no respecters of persons. Where our vision was devel- 

25 oped to a degree that enabled us to see crookedness, 
we opposed it whether in great or small. As a matter of 
fact, we found that it needed much more courage to stand 
up openly against labor men when they were wrong than 
against capitalists when they were wrong. The sins 

30 against labor are usually committed, and the improper 
services to capitalists are usually rendered, behind closed 



ENTERING POLITICS 33 

doors. Very often the man with the moral courage to speak 
in the open against labor when it is wrong is the only man 
anxious to do effective work for labor when labor is 
right. 

The only kinds of courage and honesty which ares 
permanently useful to good institutions anywhere are 
those shown by men who decide all cases with impartial 
justice on grounds of conduct and not on grounds of class. 
We found that in the long run the men who in public 
blatantly insisted that labor was never wrong were the lo 
very men who in private could not be trusted to stand 
for labor when it was right. We grew heartily to dis- 
trust the reformer who never denounced wickedness 
unless it was embodied in a rich man. Human nature 
does not change; and that tjrpe of ''reformer^' is as noxious is 
now as he ever was. The loud-mouthed upholder of 
popular rights who attacks wickedness only when it is 
allied with wealth, and who never publicly assails any 
misdeed, no matter how flagrant, if committed nomi- 
nally in the interest of labor, has either a warped mind 20 
or a tainted soul, and should be trusted by no honest man. 
It was largely the indignant and contemptuous dishke 
aroused in our minds by the demagogues of this class 
which then prevented those of us whose instincts at 
bottom were sound from going as far as we ought to have 25 
gone along the lines of governmental control of corpo- 
rations and governmental interference on behalf of labor. 

Traps were set for more than one of us, and if we had 
walked into these traps our public careers would have 
ended, at least so far as following them under the condi- 30 
tions which alone make it worth wliile to be in pubhc life at 



34 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

all. A man can of course hold public office, and many a man 
does hold public office, and lead a public career of a sort, 
even if there are other men who possess secrets about him 
which he cannot afford to have divulged. But no man can 

5 lead a public career really worth leading, no man can act 
with rugged independence in serious crises, nor strike at 
great abuses, nor afford to make powerful and unscrupu- 
lous foes, if he is himself vulnerable in his private char- 
acter. Nor will clean conduct by itself enable a man to 

10 render good service. I have always been fond of Josh 
Billings's^ remark that '^it is much easier to be a harm- 
less dove than a wise serpent.'' There are plenty of 
decent legislators, and plenty of able legislators; but the 
blamelessness and the fighting edge are not always com- 

15 bined. Both qualities are necessary for the man who is 
to wage active battle against the powers that prey. He 
must be clean of life, so that he can laugh when his public 
or his private record is searched; and yet being clean of 
life will not avail him if he is either foolish or timid. He 

20 must walk warily and fearlessly, and while he should never 
brawl if he can avoid it, he must be ready to hit hard if the 
need arises. Let him remember, by the way, that the 
unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if 
it can be avoided; but never hit softly. 

25 like most young men in pohtics, I went through 
various oscillations of feeling before I ^' found myself. '^ 
At one period I became so impressed with the virtue of 
complete independence that I proceeded to act on each 
case purely as I personally viewed it, without paying any 

30 heed to the principles and prejudices of others. The 
result was that I speedily, and deservedly, lost all power 
of accomplishing anything at all; and I thereby learned 



ENTERING POLITICS 35 

the invaluable lesson that in the practical activities of 
life no man can render the highest service unless he can 
act in combination with his fellows, which means a cer- 
tain amount of give-and-take between him and them. 
Again, I at one period began to believe that I had as 
future before me, and that it behooved me to be very far- 
sighted and scan each action carefully with a view to its 
possible effect on that future. This speedily made me 
useless to the public and an object of aversion to myself; 
and I then made up my mind that I would try not to lo 
think of the future g.t all, but would proceed on the 
assumption that each office I held would be the last I 
ever should hold, and that I would confine myself to 
trying to do my work as well as possible while I held 
that office. I found that for me personally this was the 15 
onl}^ way in which I could either enjoy myself or render 
good service to the country, and I never afterwards de- 
viated from this plan. 

During my three years^ ser^'ice in the Legislature I 
worked on a very simple philosophy of government. It 20 
was that personal character and initiative are the prime 
requisites in political and social life. It was not only a 
good but an absolutely indispensable theory as far as it 
went; but it was defective in that it did not sufficiently 
allow for the need of collective action. I shall never 25 
forget the men ^\^th whom I worked hand in hand in 
these legislative struggles, not only my fellow-legislators, 
but some of the newspaper reporters, such as Spinney 
and Cunningham; and then in addition the men in the 
various districts who helped us. We had made up our 30 
minds that we must not fight fire with fire, that on the 
contrary the way to win out was to equal our foes in prac- 



36 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

tical efficiency and yet to stand at the opposite plane from 
them in applied morality. 

It was not always easy to keep the just middle, es- 
pecially when it happened that on one side there were 

■ 5 corrupt and unscrupulous demagogues, and on the other 
side corrupt and unscrupulous reactionaries. Our effort 
v/as to hold the scales even between both. We tried to 
stand with the cause of righteousness even though its 
advocates were anything but righteous. We endeavored 

10 to cut out the abuses of property, even though good men 
of property were misled into upholding those abuses. We 
refused to be frightened into sanctioning improper as- 
saults upon property, although we knew that the champions 
of property themselves did things that were wicked and 

15 corrupt. We were as yet by no means as thoroughly 
awake as Vv^e ought to have been to the need of controlling 
big business and to the damage done by the combination 
of politics with big business. In this matter I was not 
behind the rest of my friends; indeed, I was ahead of 

20 them, for no serious leader in political life then appre- 
ciated the prime need of grappling with these questions. 
One partial reason — not an excuse or a justification, but 
a partial reason — for my slowness in grasping the im- 
portance of action in these matters was the corrupt and 

25 unattractive nature of so many of the men who championed 
popular reforms, their insincerity, and the folly of so 
many of the actions which they advocated. Even at 
that date I had neither sympathy with nor admiration 
for the man who was merely a money king, and I did 

30 not regard the ^^ money touch, ^^ when divorced from 
other qualities, as entitling a man to either respect or 
consideration. As recited above, we did on more than 



ENTERING POLITICS 37 

one occasion fight battles, in which we neither took nor 
gave quarter, against the most prominent and powerful 
financiers and financial interests of the day. But most of 
the fights in which we were engaged were for pure hon- 
esty and decency, and they were more apt to be against 5^ 
that form of corruption which found its expression in 
demagogy than against that form of corruption which 
defended or advocated privilege. 

To play the demagogue for purposes of self-interest is 
a cardinal sin against the people in a democracy, exactly lo 
as to play the courtier for such purposes is a cardinal sin 
against the people under other forms of government. 
A man who stays long in our American political life, if 
he has in his soul the generous desire to do effective 
service for great causes, inevitably grows to regard him- 15 
self merely as one of many instruments, all of which it 
may be necessary to use, one at one time, one at another, in 
achie\ing the triumph of those causes; and whenever the 
usefulness of any one has been exhausted it is to be thrown 
aside. If such a man is wise, he will gladly do the thing 20 
that is next, when the time and the need come together, 
^\ithout asking what the future holds for him. Let the 
half-god play his part well and manfully, and then be 
content to draw aside when the god appears. Nor 
should he feel vain regrets that to another it is given to 25 
render greater services and reap a greater reward. Let it 
be enough for him that he too has served, and that by 
doing well he has prepared the way for the other man 
who can do better. 



IN COWBOY LAND 

Though I had previously made a trip into the then Ter- 
ritory of Dakota,^ beyond the Red River, it was not until 
1883 that I went to the Little Missouri, and there took 
hold of two cattle ranches, the Chimney Butte and the 

5 Elkhorn. 

It was still the Wild West in those days, the Far West, 
the West of Owen Wister's stories^ and Frederic Rem- 
ington's drawings,^ the West of the Indian and the 
buffalo-hunter, the soldier and the cow-puncher. That 

10 land of the West has gone now, '^gone, gone with the lost 
Atlantis,^'' gone to the isle of ghosts and of strange dead 
memories. It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lonely 
rivers, and of plains where the wild game stared at the 
passing horseman. It was a land of scattered ranches, 

15 of herds of long-horned cattle, and of reckless riders who 
unmoved looked into the eyes of life or of death. In that 
land we led a free and hardy hfe, with horse and rifle. We 
worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the 
wide plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we 

20 knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the 
cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime 
the stars were glorious in our eyes each night before we 
fell asleep; and in the winter we rode through blinding 
blizzards, when the driven snow-dust burnt our faces. 

25 There were monotonous days, as we guided the trail 
cattle or the beef herds, hour after hour, at the slowest of 
walks; and minutes or hours teeming with excitement 
as we stopped stampedes or swam the herds across rivers 
treacherous with quicksands or brimmed with running 



IN COWBOY LAND 39 

ice. We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst; 
and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked 
among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with 
one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our 
veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of 5 
living. 

It was right and necessary that this Ufe should pass, 
for the safety of our country lies in its being made 
the country of the small home-maker. The great un- 
fenced ranches, in the days of ^^free grass,^' necessarily lo 
represented a temporary stage in our history. The 
large migratory flocks of sheep, each guarded by the 
hired shepherds of absentee owners, were the first enemies 
of tlie cattle-men; and owing to the way they ate out the 
grass and destroyed all other vegetation, these roving 15 
sheep bands represented little of permanent good to the 
country. But the homesteaders, the permanent settlers, 
the men who took up each his own farm on which he 
lived and brought up his family, these represented from 
the National standpoint the most desirable of all possible 20 
users of, and dwellers on, the soil. Their advent meant 
the breaking up of the big ranches; and the change was a 
National gain, although to some of us an individual loss. 

I reached the Little Missouri on a Northern Pacific 
train about three in the morning of a cool September day 25 
in 1883. Aside from the station, the only building was 
a ramshackle structure called the Pyramid Park Hotel. 
I dragged my duffle-bag^ thither, and hammered at the 
door until the frowsy proprietor appeared, muttering 
oaths. He ushered me upstairs, where I was given one 30 
of the fourteen beds in the room which by itself constituted 
the entire upper floor. Next day I walked over to the 



40 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

abandoned army post, and, after some hours among the 
gray log shacks, a ranchman who had driven into the 
station agreed to take me out to his ranch, the Chimney 
Butte ranch, where he was Hving with his brother and 
5 their partner. 

The ranch was a log structure with a dirt roof, a 
corral for horses near by, and a chicken-house jabbed 
against the rear of the ranch house. Inside there was 
only one room, and a table, three or four chairs, a cooking- 

10 stove, and three bunks. The owners were Sylvane and 
Joe Ferris and William J. Merrifield. . . . There was 
a fourth man, George Me3^er, who also worked for 
me later. That evening we all played old sledge"^ round 
the table, and at one period the game was interrupted 

15 by a frightful squawking outside which told us that a 
bobcat had made a raid on the chicken-house. 

After a buffalo hunt with my original friend, Joe Ferris, 
I entered into partnership with Merrifield and Sylvane 
Ferris, and we started a cow ranch, with the maltese 

20 cross brand — always known as ^^maltee cross,'' by the 
way, as the general impression along the Little Missouri 
was that ^^ maltese'' must be a plural. . . . They were 
among my most constant companions for the few years 
next succeeding the evening when the bobcat interrupted 

25 the game of old sledge. I lived and worked with them 
on the ranch, and with them and many others like them 
on the round-up; and I brought out from Maine, in order 
to start the Elkhorn ranch lower down the river, my two 
backwoods friends Sewall and Dow. My brands for 

30 the lower ranch were the elkhorn and triangle. 

I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive 
to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in 



IN COWBOY LAND 41 

those days. It was a fine, healthy Kfe, too; it taught a 
man self-rehance, hardihood, and the value of instant 
decision — ^in short, the virtues that ought to come from 
life in the open country. I enjoyed the life to the full. 
After the first year I built on the Elkhorn ranch a long, s 
low ranch house of hewn logs, with a veranda, and with, 
in addition to the other rooms, a bedroom for myself, 
and a sitting-room with a big fire-place. I got out a 
rocking-chair — I am very fond of rocking-chairs — and 
enough books to fill two or three shelves, and a rubber lo 
bath-tub so that I could get a bath. And then I do not 
see how any one could have lived more comfortably. We 
had buffalo robes and bearskins of our own killing. We 
always kept the house clean — using the word in a rather 
large sense. There were at least two rooms that were 15 
always warm, even in the bitterest weather; and we had 
plenty to eat. Commonly the mainstay of every meal 
was game of our own killing, usually antelope or deer, 
sometimes grouse or ducks, and occasionally, in the earher 
days, buffalo or elk. We also had flour and bacon, sugar, 20 
salt, and canned tomatoes. And later, when some of 
the men married and brought out their wives, we had all 
kinds of good things, such as jams and jellies made from 
the wild plums and the buffalo berries, and potatoes from 
the forlorn little garden patch. Moreover, we had milk. 25 
Most ranchmen at that time never had milk. I knew 
more than one ranch with ten thousand head of cattle 
where there was not a cow that could be milked. We made 
up our minds that we would be more enterprising. Accord- 
ingly, we started to domesticate some of the cows. Our 30 
first effort was not successful, chiefly because we did 
not devote the needed time and patience to the matter. 



42 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

And we found that to race a cow two miles at full speed 
on horseback, then rope her, throw her, and turn her 
upside down to milk her, while exhilarating as a pastime, 
was not productive of results. Gradually we accumulated 

5 tame cows, and, after we had thinned out the bobcats 
and coyotes, more chickens. 

The ranch house stood on the brink of a low bluff 
overlooking the broad, shallow bed of the Little Missouri, 
through which at most seasons there ran only a trickle 

10 of water, while in times of freshet it was filled brimful 
with the boiling, foaming, muddy torrent. There was no 
neighbor for ten or fifteen miles on either side of me. 
The river twisted down in long curves between narrow 
bottoms bordered by sheer cliff walls, for the Bad Lands, 

15 a chaos of peaks, plateaus, and ridges, rose abruptly from 
the edges of the level tree-clad, or grassy, alluvial meadows. 
In front of the ranch-house veranda was a row of cotton- 
wood trees with gray-green leaves which quivered all day 
long if there was a breath of air. From these trees came the 

20 faraway, melancholy cooing of mourning doves, and little 
owls perched in them and called tremulously at night. In 
the long summer afternoons we would sometimes sit on 
the piazza, when there was no work to be done, for an hour 
or two at a time, watching the cattle on the sand-bars, and 

25 the sharply channeled and strangly carved amphitheater 
of cliffs across the bottom opposite; while the "\ailtures 
wheeled overhead, their black shadows gliding across the 
glaring white of the dry river-bed. Sometimes from the 
ranch we saw deer, and once when we needed meat I 

30 shot one across the river as I stood on the piazza. In the 
winter, in the days of iron cold, when everything was 
white under the snow, the river lay in its bed fixed and 



IN COWBOY LAND 43 

immovable as a bar of bent steel, and then at night 
wolves and lynxes traveled up and down it as if it had 
been a highway passing in front of the ranch house. Often 
in the late fall or early winter, after a hard day's hunting, 
or when returning from one of the winter line camps, we s 
did not reach the ranch until hours after sunset; and after 
the weary tramping in the cold it was keen pleasure to 
catch the first red gleam of the fire-lit windows across the 
snowy wastes. 

The Elkhorn ranch house was built mainly by Sewall lo 
and Dow, who, like most men from the Maine woods, 
were mighty with the ax. I could chop fairly well for 
an amateur, but I could not do one-third the work they 
could. One day when we were cutting down the cotton- 
wood trees, to begin our building operations, I heard is 
some one ask Dow what the total cut had been, and Dow 
not realizing that I was within hearing, answered: ^^Well, 
Bill cut down fifty-three, I cut forty-nine, and the boss 
he beavered down seventeen.'' Those who have seen the 
stump of a tree which has been gnawed down by a beaver 20 
will understand the exact force of the comparison. 

In those days on a cow ranch the men were apt to be 
away on the various round-ups at least half the time. It 
was interesting and exciting work, and except for the lack 
of sleep on the spring and summer round-ups it was not ex- 25 
hausting work; compared to lumbering or mining or black- 
smithing, to sit in the saddle is an easy form of labor. The 
ponies were of course grass-fed and unshod. Each man 
had his own string of nine or ten. One pony would be used 
for the morning work, one for the afternoon, and neither 30 
would again be used for the next three days. A separate 
I)ony was kept for night riding. 



44 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

I never became a good roper, nor more than an average 
rider, according to ranch standards. Of course a man on 
a ranch has to ride a good many bad horses, and is bound 
to encounter a certain number of accidents, and of these 
5 1 had my share, at one time cracking a rib, and on another 
occasion the point of my shoulder. We were hundreds of 
miles from a doctor, and each time, as I was on the round- 
up, I had to get through my work for the next few weeks as 
best I could, until the injury healed of itself. When I had 

10 the opportunity, I broke my own horses, doing it gently 
and gradually and spending much time over it, and choos- 
ing the horses that seemed gentle to begin with. With 
these horses I never had any difficulty. But frequently 
there was neither time nor opportunity to handle our 

15 mounts so elaborately. We might get a band of horses, 
each having been bridled and saddled two or three times, 
but none of them having been broken beyond the extent 
implied in this bridling and saddling. Then each of us in 
succession would choose a horse (for his string), I as owner 

20 of the ranch being given the first choice on each round, so 
to speak. The first time I was ever on a round-up Sylvane 
Ferris, Merrifield, Meyer, and I each chose his string in 
this fashion. Three or four of the animals I got were not 
easy to ride. The effort both to ride them and to look as 

25 if I enjoj^ed doing so, on some cool morning when my grin- 
ning cowboy friends had gathered round ^Ho see whether 
the high-headed bay could buck the boss off,^^ doubtless 
was of benefit to me, but lacked much of being enjoyable. 
The time I smashed my rib I was bucked off on a stone. 

30 The time I hurt the point of my shoulder I was riding a 
big, sulky horse named Ben Butler, which went over back- 
wards with me. When we got up it still refused to go any- 



IN COWBOY LAND 45 

where; so, while I sat it, Sylvane Ferris and George Meyer 
got their ropes on its neck and dragged it a few hundred 
yards, choking but stubborn, all four feet firmly planted 
and plowing the ground. When they released the ropes it 
lay down and wouldn't get up. The round-up had started; 5 
so Sylvane gave me liis horse, Baldy, which sometimes 
bucked but never went over backwards, and he got onto the 
now re-arisen Ben Butler. To my discomfiture Ben started 
quietly beside us, while S^dvane remarked, ^^Why, there^s 
nothing the matter with this horse; he's a plumb gentle lo 
horse." Then Ben fell slightly behind and I heard Sylvane 
again, ''That's all right! Come along! Here, you! Go on, 
you! Hi, hi, fellows, help me out! he's lying on me! " Sure 
enough, he was; and when we dragged Sylvane from under 
him the first thing the rescued Sylvane did was to execute 15 
a war-dance, spurs and all, on the iniquitous Ben. We 
could do nothing with him that da}^; subsequently we got 
him so that we could ride him; but he never became a nice 
saddle-horse. 

20 

On several occasions we had to fight fire. In the geog- 
raphy books of my youth prairie fires were always por- 
trayed as taking place in long grass, and all living things ran 
before them. On the northern cattle plains the grass was 
never long enough to be a source of danger to man or beast. 25 
The fires w^ere nothing like the forest fires in the Northern 
woods. But they destroyed large quantities of feed, and 
we had to stop them where possible. The process we usually 
followed was to kill a steer, split it in two length-wise, 
and then have two riders drag each half-steer, the ropeso 
of one running from his saddle-horn to the front leg, and 
that of the other to the hind leg. One of the men would 



46 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

spur his horse over or through the hne of fire, and the two 
would then ride forward, dragging the steer bloody side 
downward along the line of flame, men following on foot 
with slickers or wet horse-blankets to beat out any flick- 
5 ering blaze that was still left. It was exciting work, for the 
fire and the twitching and plucking of the ox carcass over 
the uneven ground maddened the fierce little horses so that 
it was necessary to do some riding in order to keep them to 
their work. After a while it also became very exhausting, 
10 the thirst and fatigue being great, as, with parched lips and 
blackened from head to foot, we toiled at our task. 

In the old days in the ranch country we depended upon 
game for fresh meat. Nobody liked to kill a beef, and 
although now and then a maverick^ yearling might be killed 

15 on the round-up, most of us looked askance at the deed, 
because if the practice of beef-killing was ever allowed to 
start, the rustlers — the horse thieves and cattle thieves — 
would be sure to seize on it as an excuse for general slaugh- 
ter. Getting meat for the ranch usually devolved upon 

20 me. I almost always carried a rifle when I rode, either in a 
scabbard under my thigh, or across the pommel. Often I 
would pick up a deer or antelope while about my regular 
work, when visiting a line camp or riding after the cattle. 
At other times I would make a day's trip after them. In the 

25 fall we sometimes took a wagon and made a week's hunt, 
returning with eight or ten deer carcasses, and perhaps an 
elk or a mountain sheep as well. I never became more than 
a fair hunter, and at times I had most exasperating expe- 
riences, either failing to see game which I ought to have 

30 seen, or committing some blunder in the stalk, or failing to 
kill when I fired. Looking back, I am inclined to say that 



IN COWBOY LAND 47 

if I had any good quality as a hunter it was that of 
perseverance. ^'It is dogged that does if in hunting as in 
in many other things. Unless in wholly exceptional cases, 
w^hen we were very hungrj^ I never killed anything but 
bucks. 5 

Occasionally I made long trips away from the ranch 
and among the Rocky Mountains with my ranch fore- 
man Merrifield; or in later years with Tazewell Woody, 
John Willis, or John Goff. We hunted bears, both the 
black and the grizzly, cougars and wolves, and moose, lo 
wapiti, and white goat. On one of these trips I killed 
a bison bull, and I also killed a bison bull on the Little 
Missouri some fifty miles south of my ranch on a trip 
which Joe Ferris and I took together. It was rather 
a rough trip. Each of us carried only his slicker behind is 
him on the saddle, with some flour and bacon done up 
in it. We met with all kinds of misadventures. Finally 
one night, when we were sleeping by a slimy little 
prairie pool where there was not a stick of wood, we 
had to tie the horses to the horns of our saddles; and "^o 
then we went to sleep with our heads on the saddles. In 
the middle of the night something stampeded the horses, 
and away they went, with the saddles after them. As 
we jumped to our feet Joe eyed me with an evident sus- 
picion that I was the Jonah of the party, and said: ^'0 25 
Lord! Fve never done anything to deserve this. Did you 
ever do anything to deserve this? '' 

I owe more than I can ever express to the West, which of 
course means to the men and women I met in the West. 30 
There were a few people of bad type in my neighbor- 
hood — that would be true of every group of men, even in 



48 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

a theological seminary — ^but T could not speak with too 
great affection and respect of the great majority of my 
friends, the hard-working men and women who dwelt for 
a space of perhaps a hundred and fifty miles along the 

5 Little Missouri. I was always as welcome at their houses 
as they were at mine. Everybody worked, everybody was 
willing to help everybody else, and yet nobody asked any 
favors. The same thing was true of the people whom T 
got to know fifty miles east and fifty miles west of my 

10 own range, and of the men T met on the round-ups. They 
soon accepted me as a friend and fellow-worker who 
stood on an equal footing with them, and I believe that 
most of them have kept their feeling for me ever since. 
No guests were ever more welcome at the White House 

15 than these old friends of the cattle ranches and the cow 
camps — the men with whom T had ridden the long circle 
and eaten at the tail-board of a chuck-wagon^-whenever 
they turned up at Washington during my Presidency. I 
remember one of them who appeared at Washington one 

20 day just before lunch, a huge, powerful man who, when I 
knew him, had been distinctly a fighting character. Tt 
happened that on that day another old friend, the British 
Ambassador, Mr. Bryce,° was among those coming to 
lunch. Just before we went in T turned to my cow- 

25 puncher friend and said to him with great solemnity, 
^'Remember, Jim, that if you shot at the feet of the 
British Ambassador to make him dance, it would be likely 
to cause international complications;^' to which Jim 
responded with unaffected horror, ^^Why, Colonel, I 

30 shouldn't think of it, I shouldn't think of it! " 

Not only did the men and the women whom I met in 
the cow country quite unconsciously help me, by the in- 



IN COWBOY LAND 49 

sight which warking and Hving with them enabled me to get 
into the mind and soul of the average American of the 
right type, but they helped me in another way. I made 
up my mind that they were men of just the kind whom 
it would be well to have with me if ever it became neces- 5 
sary to go to war. When the Spanish War came, I gave 
this thought practical realization. 

Fortunately, Wister and Remington, with pen and 
pencil, have made these men live as long as our lit- 
erature lives. I have sometimes been asked if Wister 's lo 
'^ Virginian^' is not overdrawn; why, one of the men I 
have mentioned in this chapter was in all essentials the 
Virginian in real life, not only in his force but in his 
charm. Half of the men I worked with or played with and 
half of the men who soldiered with me afterwards in my is 
regiment might have walked out of Wister's stories or 
Remington's pictures. 

There were bad characters in the Western country at 
that time, of course, and under the conditions of life 
they were probably more dangerous than they would 20 
have been elsewhere. I hardly ever had any difficulty, 
however. I never went into a saloon, and in the little 
hotels I kept out of the bar-room unless, as sometimes 
happened, the bar-room was the only room on the lower 
floor except the dining-room. I always endeavored to 25 
keep out of a quarrel until self-respect forbade my mak- 
ing any further effort to avoid it, and I veiy rarely had 
even the semblance of trouble. 

Of course amusing incidents occurred now and then. 
Usually these took place when I was hunting lost horses, 30 
for in hunting lost horses I was ordinarily alone, and occa- 
sionally had to travel a hundred or a hundred and fifty 



50 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

miles away from my own country. On one such occasion I 
reached a Httle cow town long after dark, stabled my horse 
in an empty outbuilding, and when I reached the hotel 
was informed in response to my request for a bed that 

5 1 could have the last one left, as there was only one other 
man in it. The room to which I was shown contained two 
double beds; one contained two men fast asleep, and the 
other only one man, also asleep. This man proved to be a 
friend, one of the Bill Joneses whom I have previously men- 

lotioned. I undressed according to the fashion of the day 
and place, that is, I put my trousers, boots, shaps, and 
gun down beside the bed, and turned in. A couple of hours 
later I was awakened by the door being thrown open and 
a lantern flashed in my face, the light gleaming on the 

15 muzzle of a cocked .45. Another man said to the lantern- 
bearer, ^'It ain't him;'^ the next moment my bedfellow was 
covered with two guns, and addressed, ^'Now, Bill, don't 
make a fuss, but come along quiet.'' ^^I'm not think- 
ing of making a fuss," said Bill. ^^ That's right," was the 

20 answer; ^^ we're your friends; we don't want to hurt you; 
we just want you to come along, you know why." And 
Bill pulled on his trousers and boots and walked out with 
them. Up to this time there had not been a sound from 
the other bed. Now a match was scratched, a candle lit, 

25 and one of the men in the other bed looked round the 
room. At this point I committed the breach of etiquette of 
asking questions. ^^I wonder why they took Bill," I said. 
There was no answer, and I repeated ^^I wonder why they 
took Bill." ^^Well," said the man with the candle, dryly, 

30^^ I reckon they wanted him," and with that he blew out 
the candle and conversation ceased. Later I discovered 
that Bill in a fit of playfulness had held up the Northern 



IN COWBOY LAND 51 

Pacific train at a near-by station by shooting at the feet 
of the conductor to make him dance. This was purely 
a joke on Bill's part, but the Northern Pacific people pos- 
sessed a less robust sense of humor, and on their complaint 
the United States Marshal was sent after Bill, on the 5 
ground that by delaying the train he had interfered with 
the mails. 

The only time I ever had serious trouble was at an 
even more primitive little hotel than the one in question. 
It was also on an occasion when I was out after lost horses, lo 
Below the hotel had merely a bar-room, a dining-room, 
and a lean-to kitchen; above was a loft with fifteen or 
twenty beds in it. It was late in the evening when I 
reached the place. I heard one or two shots in the bar- 
room as I came up, and I dishked going in. But there is 
was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night. Inside 
the room were several men, who, including the bartender, 
were wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are 
making believe to like what they don't like. A shabby 
individual in a broad hat with a cocked gun in each hand 20 
was walking up and down the floor talking with strident 
profanity. He had evidently been shooting at the clock, 
which had two or three holes in its face. 

He was not a ^'bad man'' of the really dangerous type, 
the true man-killer type, but he was an objectionable 25 
creature, a would-be bad man, a bully who for the mo- 
ment was ha\ang things all his own way. As soon as he 
saw me he hailed me as ^^Four eyes," in reference to my 
spectacles, and said, ^'Four eyes is going to treat." I 
joined in the laugh and got behind the stove and sat down, 30 
thinking to escape notice. He followed me, however, and 
though I tried to pass it off as a jest this merely made him 



52 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

more offensive, and he stood leaning over me, a gun in 
each hand, using very foul language. He was foolish to 
stand so near, and, moreover, his heels were close together, 
so that his position was unstable. Accordingly, in response 

5 to his reiterated command that I should set up the drinks, 

^ I said, ^^Well, if IVe got to, IVe got to,'' and rose, look- 
ing past him. 

As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just 
to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left 

10 as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He 
fired the guns, but I do not know whether this was merely 
a convulsive action of his hands or whether he was trying 
to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of 
the bar with his head. It was not a case in which one could 

15 afford to take chances, and if he had moved I was about 
to drop on his ribs with my knees; but he was senseless. 
I took away his guns, and the other people in the room, 
who were now loud in their denunciation of him, hustled 
him out and put him in a shed. I got dinner as soon as 

20 possible, sitting in a corner of the dining-room away from 
the windows, and then went upstairs to bed where it was 
dark so that there would be no chance of any one shooting 
at me from the outside. However, nothing happened. 
When my assailant came to, he went down to the station 

25 and left on a freight. 

There was one bit of frontier philosophy which I should 
hke to see imitated in more advanced communities. Cer- 
tain crimes of revolting baseness and cruelty were never 
30 forgiven. But in the case of ordinary offenses, the man 
who had served his term and who then tried to make good 
was given a fair chance; and of course this was equally 



IN COWBOY LAND 53 

true of the women. Every one who has studied the sub- 
ject at all is only too well aware that the world offsets the 
readiness with which it condones a crime for which a man 
escapes punishment, by its unforgiving relentlessness to 
the often far less guilty man who is punished, and who 5 
therefore has made his atonement. On the frontier, if the 
man honestly tried to behave himself there was generally 
a disposition to give him fair play and a decent show. Sev- 
eral of the men I knew and whom I particularly liked came 
in this class. There was one such man in my regiment, a lo 
man who had served a term for robbery under arms, and 
who had atoned for it by many years of fine performance 
of duty. I put him in a high official position, and no man 
under me rendered better service to the State, nor was 
there any man whom, as soldier, as civil officer, as citizen. 15 
and as friend, I valued and respected — and now value and 
respect — more. 

Now I suppose some good people will gather from this 
that I favor men who commit crimes. I certainly do not 
favor them. I have not a particle of sympathy with the sen- 20 
timentality — as I deem it, the mawkishness — which over- 
flows with foolish pity for the criminal and cares not at 
all for the victim of the criminal. I am glad to see wrong- 
doers punished. The punishment is an absolute necessity 
from the standpoint of society; and I put the reformation 25 
of the criminal second to the welfare of society. But I 
do desire to see the man or w^oman who has paid the pen- 
alty and who washes to reform given a helping hand — 
surely every one of us who knows his own heart must know 
that he too may stumble, and should be anxious to help his 30 
brother or sister who has stumbled. When the criminal 
has been punished, if he then shows a sincere desire to lead 



54 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 



a decent and upright life, he should be given the chance, 
he should be helped and not hindered; and if he makes 
good, he should receive that respect from others which so 
often aids in creating self-respect — ^the most invaluable 
5 of all possessions. 



THE ROUGHRIDERS 

In the spring of 1897 President McKinley appointed 
me Assistant Secretary of the Navy. I owed the appoint- 
ment chiefly to the efforts of Senator H. C. Lodge,° of Mas- 
sachusetts, who doubtless was actuated chiefly by his 
long and close friendship for me, but also — I like to be- 5 
lieve — by his keen interest in the Navy.° The first book 
I had ever published, fifteen years previousl}^, was '^The 
History of the Naval War of 1812;" and I have always 
taken the interest in the Navy which every good Amer- 
ican ought to take. At the time I wrote the book, in the lo 
early eighties, the navy had reached its nadir, and we 
were then utterly incompetent to fight Spain or any other 
power that had a navy at all. Shortly afterwards we 
began timidly and hesitatingly to build up a fleet. It is 
amusing to recall the roundabout steps we took to accom- i5 
plish our purpose. In the reaction after the colossal 
struggle of the Civil War our strongest and most capable 
men had thrown their whole energy into business, into 
money-making, into the development, and above all the 
exploitation and exhaustion at the most rapid rate pos-20 
sible, of our natural resources — mines, forests, soil, and 
rivers. These men were not weak men, but they per- 
mitted themselves to grow shortsighted and selfish; and 
while many of them down at the bottom possessed the 
fundamental virtues, including the fighting virtues, others 25 
were purely of the glorified huckster or glorified pawn- 
broker type — which when developed to the exclusion of 
everything else makes about as poor a national type as 
the world has seen. This unadulterated huckster or pawn- 

55 



56 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

. broker type is rarely keenly sympathetic in matters of 
social and industrial justice, and is usually physically timid 
and likes to cover an unworthy fear of the most just war 
under high-sounding names. 
5 It was reinforced by the large mollycoddle vote — the 
people who are soft physically and morally, or who have 
a twist in them which makes them acidly cantankerous 
and unpleasant as long as they can be so with safety to 
their bodies. In addition there are the good people with 

10 no imagination and no foresight, who think war will not 
come, but that if it does come armies and navies can be 
improvised — a very large element, typified by a Senator 
I knew personally who, in a public speech, in answer to 
a question as to what we would do if America were sud- 

isdenly assailed by a first-class military power, answered 
that ''we would build a battle-ship in every creek.'' Then, 
among the wise and high-minded people who in self- 
respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, 
for there are the foolish fanatics always to be found 

20 in such a movement and always discrediting it — the 
men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform move- 
ments. 

All these elements taken together made a body of pub- 
lic opinion so important during the decades immediately 

25 succeeding the Civil War as to put a stop to any serious ef- 
fort to keep the Nation in a condition of reasonable mili- 
tary prepardness. The representatives of this opinion then 
voted just as they now do when they vote against battle- 
ships or against fortifying the Panama Canal. It would 

30 have been bad enough if we had been content to be 
weak, and, in view of our weakness, not to bluster. But 
we were not content with such a policy. We wished 



THE ROUGHRIDERS 57 

to enjoy the incompatible luxuries of an unbridled 
tongue and an unready hand. There was a very large 
element which was ignorant of our military weakness, 
or, naturally enough, unable to understand it; and another 
large element which liked to please its own vanity by 5 
listening to offensive talk about foreign nations. Accord- 
ingly, too many of our pohticians, especially in Congress 
found that the cheap and easy thing to do was to please 
the foolish peace people by keeping us weak, and to 
please ihe foohsh violent people by passing denuncia- lo 
tory resolutioru'i about international matters — resolutions 
which would have been improper even if we had been 
strong. Their idea was to please both the mollycoddle vote 
and the vote of the international tail-twisters by uphold- 
ing, with pretended ardor and mean intelligence, a Nar- is 
tional poUcy of peace with insult. 

I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by 
the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among 
nationals or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. 
I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so 20 
long as, it is possible honorably to avoid it. I respect all 
men and women who from high motives and with sanity 
and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate 
preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should 
never advocate war unless it were the only alternative 25 
to dishonor. I describe the folly of which so many of our 
people were formerly guilty, in order that we may in our 
own day be on our guard against similar folly. 

We did not at the time of which I write take our for- 
eign duties seriously, and as we combined bluster in speech 30 
with refusal to make any preparation whatsoever for action, 
we were not taken seriously in return. Gradually a slight 



58 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

change for the better occurred, the writings of Captain 
Mahan° playing no small part therein. We built some mod- 
ern cruisers to start with; the people who felt that battle- 
ships were wicked compromising with their misguided 
5 consciences by saying that the cruisers could be used ^Ho 
protect our commerce'^ — ^which they could not be, unless 
they had battle-ships to back them. Then we attempted 
to build more powerful fighting vessels, and as there was 
a section of the public which regarded battle-ships as pos- 

losessing a name immorally suggestive of violence, we com- 
promised by calling the new ships armored cruisers, and 
making them combine with exquisite nicety all the de- 
fects and none of the virtues of both types. Then we got 
to the point of building battle-ships. But there still re- 

15 mained a public opinion, as old as the time of Jefferson,^ 
which thought that in the event of war all our problem 
ought to be one of coast defense, that we should do noth- 
ing except repel attack; an attitude about as sensible as 
that of a prize-fighter who expected to 'v\dn by merely 

20 parrying instead of hitting. To meet the susceptibilities 
of this large class of well-meaning people, we provided for 
the battle-ships under the name of ^' coast defense battle- 
ships; '^ meaning thereby that we did not make them quite 
as seaworthy as they ought to have been, or with quite as 

25 much coal capacit}^ as they ought to have had. Then we 
decided to build real battle-ships. But there still remained 
a lingering remnant of public opinion that clung to the 
coast defense theory, and we met this in beautiful fashion 
by providing for ''seagoing coast defense battle-ships" — ■ 

30 the fact that the name was a contradiction in terms being 
of very small consequence compared to the fact that we 
did thereby get real battle-ships. 



THE ROUGHRIDERS 59 

Our men had to be trained to handle the ships singly 
and in fleet formation, and they had to be trained to use 
the new weapons of precision with which the ships were 
armed. Not a few of the older officers, kept in the service 
under our foolish rule of pure seniority promotion, wei:e5 
not competent for the task; but a proportion of the older 
officers were excellent, and this was true of almost all 
the younger officers. They were naturally first-class 
men, trained in the admirable naval school at Annapolis. 
They were overjoyed that at last they were given proper lo 
instruments to work with, and they speedily grew to 
handle these ships individually in the best fashion. They 
were fast learning to handle them in squadron and fleet 
formation; but when the war with Spain broke out, they 
had as yet hardly grasped the principles of modern 15 
scientific naval gunnery. 

Soon after I began work as Assistant Secretary of 
the Navy I became convinced that the war would come. 
The revolt in Cuba had dragged its weary length until 
conditions in the island had become so dreadful as to 20 
be a standing disgrace to us for permitting them to exist. 
There is much that I sincerely admire about the Spanish 
character; and there are few men for whom I have felt 
greater respect than for certain gentlemen of Spain whom I 
have known. But Spain attempted to govern her colonies 25 
on archaic principles which rendered her control of them 
incompatible with the advance of humanity and intolerable 
to the conscience of mankind. In 1898 the so-called 
war in Cuba had dragged along for years with un- 
speakable horror, degradation, and misery. It was not 30 
'^war^' at all, but murderous oppression. Cuba was 
devastated. 



60 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

When the Maine° was blown up in Havana Harbor, 
war became inevitable. A number of the peace-at-any- 
price men of course promptl}^ assumed the position that she 
had blown herself up; but investigation showed that the 
5 explosion was from outside. And, in any event, it would 
have been impossible to prevent war. 

Among my friends was the then Army Surgeon Leon- 
ard Wood. He was a surgeon. Not having an income, 
he had to earn his owti living. He had gone through the 

10 Harvard Medical School, and had then joined the army 
in the Southwest as a contract doctor. He had every 
physical, moral, and mental quality which fitted him for 
a soldier's life and for the exercise of command. In the 
inconceivably wearing and harassing campaigns against 

15 the Apaches° he had served nominally as a surgeon, 
really in command of troops, on more than one expedi- 
tion. He was as anxious as I was that if there were war 
we should both have our part in it. I had always fdt 
that if there were a serious war I wished to be in a position 

20 to explain to my children why I did take part in it, and 
not why I did not take part in it. Moreover, I had ve-y 
deeply felt that it was our duty to free Cuba, and I 
had publicly expressed this feeling; and when a man 
takes such a position, he ought to be willing to make 

25 his words good by his deeds unless there is some very 
strong reason to the contrary. He should pay with his 
body. 

As soon as war was upon us. Wood and I began to try 
for a chance to go to the front. Congress had authorized 

30 the raising of three National Volunteer Cavalry regiments 
wholly apart from the State contingents. Secretary 



THE ROUGHRIDERS 61 

Alger° of the War Department was fond of me personally, 
and Wood was his family doctor. Alger had been a gal- 
lant soldier in the Civil War, and was almost the only 
member of the Administration who felt all along that 
we would have to go to war with Spain over Cuba. He 5 
liked my attitude in the matter, and because of his remem- 
brance of his own experiences he sympathized with my 
desire to go to the front. Accordingly he offered me the 
command of one of the regiments. I told him that after 
six weeks" service in the field I would feel competent to lo 
handle the regiment, but that I would not know how to 
equip it or how to get it into the first action; but that 
W^ood was entirely competent at once to take command, 
and that if he would make Wood colonel I would accept 
the heutenant-colonelcy. General Alger thought this i5 
an act of foolish self-abnegation on my part — instead 
of its being, what it was, the ^vise&t act I could have per- 
formed. He told me to accept the colonelcy, and that 
he would make Wood lieutenant-colonel, and that Wood 
would do the work anyway; but I answered that I did 20 
not wish to rise on any man's shoulders; that I hoped 
to be given every chance that my deeds and abihties 
warranted; but that I did not wish what I did not earn, 
and that above all I did not wish to hold any position 
where any one else did the work. He laughed at me a 25 
little and said I was foohsh, but I do not tliink he really 
minded, and he promised to do as I wished. True to 
his word, he secured the appointment of Wood as colonel 
and of myself as lieutenant-colonel of the First United 
States Volunteer Cavalry. This was soon nicknamed, 30 
both by the public a..l ^:y the rest of the army, the Rough 
Riders, doubtless because the bulk of the men were from 



62 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

the Southwestern ranch country and were skilled in the 
wild horsemanship of the great plains. 

Wood instantly began the work of raising the regiment. 
He first assembled several old non-commissioned officers 
of experience, put them in office, and gave them blanks for 
requisitions for the full equipment of a cavalry regiment. 
He selected San Antonio° as the gathering-place, as it 
was in a good horse country, near the Gulf, from some 
port on which we would have to embark, and near an 

10 old arsenal and an old army post from which we got a good 
deal of stuff — some of it practically condemmed, but which 
we found serviceable at a pinch, and much better than noth- 
ing. He organized a horse board in Texas, and began pur- 
chasing all horses that were not too big and were sound. 

15 A day or two after he was commisioned he wrote out in 

the office of the Secretary of War, under his authority, 

telegrams to the Governors of Arizona, New Mexico, 

Oklahoma, and Indian Territory, in substance as follows: 

^^ The President desires to raise — volunteers in your 

20 Territory to form part of a regiment of mounted rifleman 
to be commanded by Leonard Wood, Colonel; Theodore 
Roosevelt, Lieutenant-Colonel. He desires that the men 
selected should be young, sound, good shots and good 
riders, and that you expedite by all means in your power 

25 the enrollment of these men. 

'' (Signed) R. A. Alger, Secretary of War.'' 
As soon as he had attended to a few more odds and 
ends he left Washington, and the day after his arrival 
in San Antonio the troops began to arrive. 

30 The regiment assembled at San Antonio. When I 
reached there, the men, rifles, and horses, which were the 



THE ROUGHRIDERS 63 

essentials, were coming in fast, and the saddles, blankets, 
and the like were also accumulating. Thanks to Wood's 
exertions, when we reached Tampa"" we were rather 
better equipped than most of the regular regiments. 
We adhered strictly to field equipment, allowing no luxuries 5 
or anything else unnecessary, and so we were able to 
move off the field when ordered, with our ovm transporta- 
tion, leaving nothing behind. 

I suppose every man tends to brag about his regiment; 
but it does seem to me that there never was a regiment lo 
better worth bragging about than ours. Wood was an 
exceptional commander, of great power, with a remarkable 
gift for organization. The rank and file were as fine 
natural fighting men as ever carried a rifle or rode a horse 
in any country or any age. We had a number of first- 15 
class young fellows from the East, most of them from 
colleges like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton; but the great 
majority of the men were Southwesterners, from the 
then Territories of Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Arizona, 
and New Mexico. They were accustomed to the use 2a 
of firearms, accustomed to taking care of themselves 
in the open; they were intelligent and self-reliant; they 
possessed hardihood and endurance and physical prowess; 
and, above all, they had the fighting edge, the cool and 
resolute fighting temper. They went into the war with 25 
full knowledge, having deliberately counted the cost. In 
the great majority of cases each man was chiefly anxious 
to find out what he should do to make the regiment a 
success. They bought, first and last, about 800 copies 
of the cavalry drill regulations and studied them industri- 30 
ously. Such men were practically soldiers to start with, 
m all the essentials. It is small wonder that with them as 



64 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

material to work upon the regiment was raised, armed, 
equipped, drilled, sent on trains to Tampa, embarked, dis- 
embarked, and put through two victorious offensive — not 
defensive — fights in which a third of the officers and one- 
5 fifth of the men were killed or wounded, all within sixty 
days. It is a good record,^ and it speaks well for the men 
of the regiment; and it speaks well for Wood. 



THE PRESIDENCY 

On September 6, 1901, President McKiiiley° was shot 
by an Anarchist in the city of Buffalo. I went to Buffalo 
at once. The President's condition seemed to be improv- 
ing, and after a day or two we were told that he was 
practically out of danger. I then joined my family, who 5 
were in the Adirondacks, near the foot of Mount Tahawus. 
A day or two afterwards we took a long tramp through 
the forest, and in the afternoon I climbed Mount Tahawus. 

After reaching the top I had descended a few hundred 
feet to a shelf of land where there was a little lake, when I lo 
saw a guide coming out of the woods on our trail from be- 
low. I felt at once that he had bad news, and, sure enough, 
he handed me a telegram saying that the President's con- 
dition was much worse and that I must come to Buffalo 
immediately. It was late in the afternoon, and darkness i5 
had fallen by the time I reached the club-house where we 
were staying. It was some time afterwards before I could 
get a wagon to drive me out to the nearest railway station, 
North Creek, some forty or fifty miles distant. The roads 
were the ordinary wilderness roads and the night was dark. 20 
But we changed horses two or three times — when I say 
^^we'' I mean the driver and I, as there was no one else 
wdth us — and reached the station just at dawn, to learn 
from Mr. Loeb,° who had a special train waiting, that the 
President was dead. That evening I took the oath of 25 
office, in the house of Ansley Wilcox, at Buffalo. 

I at once announced that I would continue unchanged 
McKinley's poUcies for the honor and prosperity of the 

65 



66 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

country, and asked all the members of the Cabinet to 
stay. There were no changes made among them save 
as changes were made among their successors whom 
I myself appointed. I continued Mr. McKinley's policies, 

5 changing and developing them and adding new poHcies 
only as the questions before the public changed and 
as the needs of the public developed. Some of my 
friends shook their heads over this, telling me that the 
men I retained would not be ^4oyal to me,'^ and that I 

10 would seem as if I were ^^a pale copy of McKinley.'^ I 
told them that I was not nervous on this score, and that 
if the men I retained were loyal to their work they would 
be gi\dng me the loyalty for which I most cared: and that 
if they were not, I would change them anyhow; and that 

15 as for being ^'a pale copy of McKinley,'' I was not pri- 
marily concerned with either following or not following in 
his footsteps, but in facing the new problems that arose; 
and that if I were competent I would find ample oppor- 
tunity to show my competence by my deeds° without 

20 worrying myself as to how to convince people of the fact. 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 

There are men who love out-of-doors who yet never 
open a book; and other men who love books but to whom 
the great book of nature is a sealed volume, and the lines 
written therein blurred and illegible. Nevertheless, 
among those men whom I have known, the love of books 5 
and the love of outdoors, in their highest expressions, 
have usually gone hand in hand. It is an affectation for 
the man who is praising outdoors to sneer at books. Us- 
ually the keenest appreciation of what is seen in nature 
is to be found in those who have also profited by the lo 
hoarded and recorded wisdom of their fellow-men. Love 
of outdoor life, love of simple and hardy pastimes, can 
be gratified by men and women who do not possess large 
means, and who work hard; and so can love of good books — 
not of good bindings and of first editions, excellent enough 15 
in their way but sheer luxuries — I mean love of reading 
books, owning them if possible of course, but, if that is 
not possible, getting them from a circulating library. 

Sagamore Hill takes its name from the old Sagamore 
Mohannis, who, as chief of his little tribe, signed away his 20 
rights to the land two centuries and a half ago. The 
house stands right on the top of the hill, separated by 
fields and belts of woodland from all other houses, and 
looks out over the bay and the Sound. We see the sun 
go down beyond long reaches of land and of water. Many 25 
birds dwell in the trees round the house or in the pastures 
and the woods near by, and of course in winter gulls, loons, 
and wild fowl frequent the waters of the bay and the 
Sound. We love all the seasons : the snows and bare woods 

67 



, 68 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

of winter; the rush of growing things and the blossom- 
spray of spring; the yellow grain, the ripening fruits and 
tasseled corn, and the deep, leafy shades that are heralded 
b}^ 'Hhe green dance of summer; ^' and the sharp fall winds 
5 that tear the briUiant banners with which the trees greet 
the dying year. 

The Sound is always lovely. In the summer nights we 
watch it from the piazza, and see the lights of the tall Fall 
River boats as they steam steadily by. Now and then we 
10 spend a day on it, the two of us together in the light row- 
ing skiff, or J)erhaps with one of the boys to pull an extra 
pair of oars; we land for lunch at noon under wind-beaten 
oaks on the edge of a low bluff, or among the wild plum 
bushes on a spit of white sand, while the sails of the coast- 
is ing schooners gleam in the sunlight, and the tolling of the 
bell-buoy comes landward across the waters. 

Long Island is not as rich in flowers as the valley of the 
Hudson. Yet there are many. Early in April there is 
one hillside near us which glows like a tender flame with 
20 the white of the bloodroot. About the same time we find 
the shy mayflower, the trailing arbutus; and although we 
rarely pick wild flowers, one member of the household 
always plucks a little bunch of mayflowers to send to a 
friend working in Panama, whose soul hungers for the 
25 Northern spring. Then there are shad-blow and delicate 
anemones, about the time of the cherry blossoms; the 
brief glory of the apple orchards follows; and then the 
thronging dog-woods fill the forests with their radiance; and 
so flowers follow flowers until the springtime splendor 
30 closes with the laurel and the evanescent, honey sweet 
locust bloom. The late summer flowers follow, the 
flaunting lilies, and cardinal flowers, and marshmallows, 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 69 

and pale beach rosemary; and the goldenrod and the as- 
ters when the afternoons shorten and we again begin to 
think of fires in the wide fire-places. 

Most of the birds in our neighborhood are the ordinary 
home friends of the house and the barn, the wood lot and 5 
the pasture; but now and then the species make queer 
sliifts. The cheery quail, alas! are rarely found near us 
now; and we no longer hear the whippoorwills at night. 
But some birds visit us now which formerly did not. When 
I was a boy neither the black-throated green warbler nor lo 
the purple finch nested around us, nor were bobolinks 
found in our fields. The black-throated gi^een warbler is 
now one of our commonest summer warblers; there are 
plenty of purple finches; and, best of all, the bobolinks are 
far from infrequent. I had written about these new visit- i5 
ors to John Burroughs,^ and once when he came out to 
see me I was able to shov/ them to him. 

When I was President, we owned a little house in west- 
em Virginia; a delightful house, to us at least, although 
only a shell of rough boards. We used sometimes to go 20 
there in the fall, perhaps at Thanksgiving, and on these 
occasions we would have quail and rabbits of our own 
shooting, and once in a while a wild turkey. We also 
went there in the spring. Of course many of the birds 
were different from our Long Island friends. There were 25 
mocking-birds, the most attractive of all birds, and blue 
grosbeaks, and cardinals and summer redbirds instead of 
scarlet tanagers, and those wonderful singers the Bewick^s 
wrens, and Carolina wrens. All these I was able to show 
John Burroughs when he came to visit us; although, by 30 
the way, he did not appreciate as much as we did one set 
of inmates of the cottage — the flying squirrels. We loved 



70 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

having the flying squirrels, father and mother and half- 
grown young, in their nest among the rafters; and at 
night we slept so soundly that we did not in the least mind 
the wild gambols of the little fellows through the rooms, 
seven when, as sometimes happened, they would swoop 
down to the bed and scuttle across it. 

One April I went to Yellowstone Park, when the snow 
was still very deep, and I took John Burroughs with me. 
I wished to show him the big game of the Park, the wild 

10 creatures that have become so astonishingly tame and 
tolerant of human presence. In the Yellowstone the 
animals seem always to behave as one wishes them lo! 
It is always possible to see the sheep and deer and ante- 
lope, and also the great herds of elk, which are shyer than 

15 the smaller beasts. In April we found the elk weak after 
the short commons and hard li\dng of winter. Once ^\dth- 
out much difficulty I regularly rounded up a big band of 
them, so that John Burroughs could look at them. I do 
not think, however, that he cared to see them as much as 

20 1 did. The birds interested him more, especially a tiny 
owl the size of a robin which we saw perched on the top 
of a tree in mid-afternoon entirely uninfluenced by the 
sun and making a queer noise like a cork being pulled from 
a bottle. I was rather ashamed to find how much better 

25 his eyes were than mine in seeing the birds and grasping 
their differences. 

When wolf-hunting in Texas, and when bear-hunting in 
Louisiana and Mississippi, I was not only enthralled by 
the sport, but also by the strange new birds and other 

30 creatures, and the trees and flowers I had not known before. 
By the way, there was one feast at the White House which 
stands above all others in my memory — even above the 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 71 

time when I lured Joel Chandler Harris'' thither for a night, 
a deed in which to triumph, as all who knew that inveter- 
ately shy recluse will testify. This was ''the bear-hunters' 
dinner.'^ I had been treated so kindly by my friends on 
these hunts, and they were such fine fellows, men whom 1 5 
was so pxoud to think of as Americans, that I set my heart 
on having them at a hunters' dinner at the White House. 
One December I succeeded; there were twenty or thirty 
of them, all told, as good hunters, as daring riders, as 
first-class citizens as could be found anywhere; no finer lo 
set of guests ever sat at meat in the White House; and 
among other game on the table was a black bear, itself 
contributed by one of these same guests. 

When I first visited California, it was my good fortune 
to see the ''big trees/' the Sequoias,^ and then to travel i5 
down into the Yosemite with John Muir.° Of course of 
all people in the world he was the one with whom it was 
best worth while thus to see the Yosemite. He told me 
that when EmerSon° came to California he tried to get 
him to come out and camp with him, for that was the only 20 
way in which to see at their best the majesty and charm of 
the Sierras. But at the time Emerson was getting old 
and could not go. John Muir met me with a couple of 
packers and two mules to carry our tent, bedding, and 
food for a three days' trip. The first night was clear, and 25 
we lay down in the darkening isles of the great Sequoia 
grove. The majestic trunks, beautiful in color and in 
symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier 
cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervor of 
the Middle Ages. Hermit thrushes sang beautifully in 30 
the evening, and again, with a burst of wonderful music, 
at dawn. I was interested and a little surprised to find 



72 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

that, unlike John Burroughs, John Muir cared Httle for 
birds or bird songs, and knew httle about them. The 
hermit thrushes meant nothing to him, the trees and the 
flowers and the cliffs everything. The only birds he no- 

5 ticed or cared for were some that were very conspicuous, 
such as the water-ousels — always particular favorites of 
mine too. The second night we camped in a snow-storm, 
on the edge of the canyon walls, under the spreading limbs 
of a grove of mighty silver firs; and next day v/e went down 

10 into the wonderland of the valley itself. I shall alwa}^ be 
glad that I \\as in the Yosemite \vith John Muir and in the 
Yellowstone with John Burroughs. 

Our most beautiful singers are the wood thrushes; they 
sing not only in the early morning but throughout the 

15 long, hot June afternoons. Sometimes they sing in the 
trees immediately around the house, and if the air is still 
we can always hear them from among the tall trees at the 
foot of the hill. The thrashers sing in the hedgerows beyond 
the garden, the catbirds ever3'w^here. The catbirds have 

20 such an attractive song that it is extremely irritating to 
know that at any moment they may interrupt it to mew 
and squeal. The bold, cheer>^ music of the robins always 
seems typical of the bold, cheer\^ birds themselves. The 
Baltimore orioles nest in the young elms around the house, 

25 and the orchard orioles in the apple trees near the garden 
and outbuildings. Among the earliest sounds of spring is 
the cheerful, simple, homely song of the song-sparrow; and 
in March we also hear the piercing cadence of the meadow- 
lark— to us one of the most attractive of all bird calls. Of 

30 late years now and then we hear the rollicking, bubbling 
melody of the bobolink in the pastures back of the barn; 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 75 

and when the full chorus of these and of many other of the 
singers of spring is dying down, there are some true hot- 
weather songsters, such as the brightly hued indigo bunt- 
ings and thistle-finches. Among the finches one of the 
most musical and plaintive songs is that of the bush- 5 
sparrow — I do not know why the books call it field- 
sparrow, for it does not dwell in the open fields like the 
vesper-finch, the savannah-sparrow, and the grasshopper- 
sparrow, but among the cedars and bayberry bushes and 
young locusts in the same places where the prairie war- lo 
bier is found. Nor is it only the true songs that delight us. 
We love to hear the flickers call, and we readily pardon 
any one of their number which, as occasionally happens, 
is bold enough to wake us in the early morning by drum- 
ming on the shingles of the roof. In our ears the red-winged is 
blackbirds have a very attractive note. We love the 
screaming of the red-tailed hawks as they soar high over- 
head, and even the calls of the night heron that nest in the 
tall water maples by one of the wood ponds on our place, 
and the little green herons that nest beside the salt marsh. 20 
It is hard to tell just how much of the attraction in any 
bird-note lies in the music itself and how much in the 
associations. This is w^hat makes it so useless to try to 
compare the bird songs of one countrj^with those of another. 
A man who is worth anything can no more be entirely 25 
impartial in speaking of the bird-songs with which from 
his earliest childhood he has been familiar than he can be 
entirely impartial in speaking of his ow^n family. 

At Sagamore Hill we love a great many things — birds 
and trees and books, and all things beautiful, and horses 30 
and rifles and children and hard work and the joy of life. 
We have great fireplaces, and in them the logs roar and 



74 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS " 

crackle during the long winter evenings. The big piazza 
is for the hot, still afternoons of summer. 

The books are everywhere. There are as many in the 
north room and in the parlor — is drawing-room a more 
5 appropriate name than parlor? — as in the library; the gun- 
room at the top of the house, which incidentally has the 
loveliest view of all, contains more books than any of the 
other rooms; and they are particularly delightful books to 
browse among, just because they have not much rele- 

lovance to one another, this being one of the reasons why 
they are relegated to their present abode. But the books 
have overflowed into all the other rooms too. 

I could not name any principle upon which the books 
have been gathered. Books are almost as individual as 

15 friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general 
laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person, and 
some of another; and each person should beware of the 
book-lover's besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe° 
calls "the mad pride of intellectuahty,'^ taking the shape 

20 of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same 
kind of books. Of course there are books which a man or 
woman uses as instruments of a profession — law books, 
medical books, cookerj^ books, and the like. I am not 
speaking of these, for they are not properly "books'' at 

25 all; they come in the category of time-tables, telephone 
directories, and other useful agencies of civilized life. I am 
speaking of books that are meant to be read. Personally, 
granted that these books are decent and healthy, the one 
test to which I demand that they all submit is that of 

30 being interesting. If the book is not interesting to the 
reader, then in all but an infinitesimal number of cases it 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 75 

gives scant benefit to the reader. Of course any reader 
ought to cultivate his or her taste so that good books will 
appeal to it, and that trash won't. But after this point has 
once been reached, the needs of each reader must be met 
in a fashion that will appeal to those needs. Personally 5 
the books by which I have profited infinitely more than 
by any others have been those in which profit was a by- 
product of the pleasure; that is, I read them because I 
enjoyed them, because I liked reading them, and the profit 
came in as part of the enjoyment. lo 

Of course each individual is apt to have some special 
tastes in which he cannot expect that any but a few friends 
will share. Now, I am very proud of my big-game library. 
I suppose there must be many big-game libraries in Con- 
tinental Europe, and possibly in England more extensive is 
than mine, but I have not happened to come across any 
such library in this country. Some of the originals go 
back to the sixteenth century, and there are copies or 
reproductions of the two or three most famous hunting 
books of the Middle Ages, such as the Duke of York's 20 
translation of Gaston Phoebus, ° and the queer book of the 
Emperor Maximilian. ° It is only very occasionally that 
I meet any one who cares for any of these books. On the 
other hand, I expect to find many friends who will turn 
naturally to some of the old or the new books of poetry or 2 3 
romance or history to which we of the household habit- 
ually turn. Let me add that ours is in no sense a collect- 
or's library. Each book was procured because some one 
of the family wished to read it. We could never afford to 
take overmuch thought for the outsides of books; we were 3 ) 
too much interested in their insides. 



76 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

Now and then I am asked as to ^Vhat books a states- 
man should read/^ and my answer is, poetry and novels — 
including short stories under the head of novels. I don't 
mean that he should read only novels and modern poetry. 

5 If he cannot also enjoy the Hebrew prophets and the 
Greek dramatists, he should be sorry. He ought to read 
interesting books on history and government, and books 
of science and philosoph}^; and realh'- good books on these 
subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in 

10 prose or verse. Gibbon° and Macaulay,° Herodotus,° 
Thuc3^dides° and Tacitus,^ the Heimskringla,^ Froissart,° 
Joinville° and Villehardouin,° Parkman° and Mahan,° 
Mommsen° and Ranke° — why! there are scores and scores 
of sohd histories, the best in the world, W'^hich are as ab- 

15 sorbing as the best of all the novels, and of as permanant 
value. The same thing is true of Darwin"" and Huxley° and 
Carlyle° and Emerson,° and parte of Kant,° and of volumes 
Hke Sutherland's"^ " Growth of the Moral Instinct,'' or 
Acton' s° Essays and Lounsbury's° studies — here again I 

20 am not tr^dng to class books together, or measure one by 
another, or enmnerate one in a thousand of those worth 
reading, but just to indicate that any man or woman of 
some intelligence and some cultivation can in some 
hne or other of serious thought, scientific or historical or 

25 philosophical or economic or governmental, find any num- 
ber of books which are charming to read, and which in 
addition give that for which liis or her soul hungers. I do 
not for a minute mean that the statesman ought not to 
read a great many different books of this character, just 

30 as every one else should read them. But, in the final 
event, the statesman, and the publicist, and the reformer, 
and the agitator for new things, and the upholder of what 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 77 

is good in old things^ all need more than anything else to 
know human nature, to know the needs of the human soul; 
and they will find this nature and these needs set forth as 
nowhere else by the great imagiiiative writers, w^hether of 
prose or of poetry. 5 

The room for choice is so limitless that to my mind it 
seems absurd to try to make catalogues which shall be 
supposed to appeal to all the best thinkers. This is why 
I have no sympathy whatever with writing lists of the 
One Hundred, Best Books,° or the Five-Foot Library. ° It lo 
is all right for a man to amuse himself by composing a list 
of a hundred very good books; and if he is to go off for a 
year or so where he cannot get many books, it is an ex- 
cellent thing to choose a five-foot library of particular 
books which in that particular year and on that particular 15 
trip he would like to read. But there is no such thing as a 
hundred books that are best for all men, or for the majority 
of men, or for one man at all times; and there is no such 
thing as a five-foot library which will satisfy the needs of 
even one particular man on different occasions extending 20 
over a number of years. Milton° is best for one mood and 
Pope° for another. Because a man likes Whitman^ or 
Browning^ or Low^ell° he should not feel himself debarred 
from Tennyson° or Kipling° or Korner° or Heine° or the 
Bard of the Dimbovitza.° Tolstoy's^ novels are good at one 25 
time and those of Sienkiewicz° at another; and he is fortu- 
nate who can relish '' Salaimnbo '' ° and '' Tom Brown ^^ ° 
and the '' Two Admirals '' ° and '^ Quentin Durward" ° 
and '' Artemus Ward '' ° and the '' Ingoldsby Legends '' ° 
and '' Pickwick ^^° and ''Vanity Fair.^^ ° Why, there 30 
are hundreds of books hke these, each one of which, if 
really read, really assimilated, by the person to whom it 



78 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

happens to appeal, will enable that person quite uncon- 
sciously to furnish himself with much ammunition which 
he will find of use in the battle of life. 

A book must be interesting to the particular reader at 
5 that particular time. But there are tens of thousands of 
interesting books, and some of them are sealed to some men 
and some are sealed to others; and some stir the soul at 
some given point of a man's life and yet convey no mes- 
sage at other times. The reader, the book-lover, must meet 
10 his own needs without paying too much attention to what 
his neighbors say those needs should be. He must not 
hypocritically pretend to like what he does not like. Yet 
at the same time he must avoid that most unpleasant of all 
the indications of puffed-up vanity which consists in treat- 
is ing mere individual, and perhaps unfortunate, idiosyn- 
crasy as a matter of pride. I happen to be devoted to 
]\iacbeth,° whereas I very seldom read Hamlet° (though 
I like parts of it). Now I am humbly and sincerely con- 
scious that this is a demerit in me and not in Hamlet; and 
20 yet it would not do me any good to pretend that I like 
Hamlet as much as Macbeth when, as a matter of fact, 
I don't. 

Aside from the masters of literature, there are all kinds 
of books which one person will find delightful, and which 

25 he certainly ought not to surrender just because nobody else 
is able to find as much in the beloved volume. There is on 
our book-shelves a little pre- Victorian novel or tale called 
^^The Semi- Attached Couple.'' It is told with much 
humor; it is a story of gentlefolk who are really gentlefolk; 

30 and to me it is altogether delightful. But outside the 
members of my own family I have never met a human 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 79 

being who had even heard of it, and I don^t suppose I ever 
shall meet one. I often enjoy a story by some living 
author so much that I write to tell him so — or to tell her 
so; and at least half the time I regret my action, because 
it encourages the writer to believe that the public shares my 5 
views, and he then finds that the public doesn^t. 

Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at 
Sagamore Hill; but children are better than books. Sag- 
amore Hill is one of three neighboring houses in which 
small cousins spent very happy years of childhood. In the lo 
three houses there were at one time sixteen of these small 
cousins, all told, and once we ranged them in order of 
size and took their photograph. There are many kinds of 
success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting 
and attractive to be a successful business man, or railway is 
man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a 
WTiter, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a 
fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But 
for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of chil- 
dren, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all 20 
other forms of success and achievement lose their impor- 
tance by comparison. 

It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; 
but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as 
for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, 25 
the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a 
by-product of striving to do what must be done, even 
though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely 
philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's 
Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: '^Do30 
what you can, with what youVe got, where you are.'' 



80 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

The country is the place for children, and if not the 
country, a city small enough so that one can get out into 
the country. When our own children were httle, we were 
for several winters in Washington, and each Sunday after- 

5 noon the whole family spent in Rock Creek Park, which was 
then very real country indeed. I would drag one of the 
children's wagons; and when the very smallest pairs of 
feet grew tired of trudging bravely after us, or of racing 
on rapturous side trips after flowers and other treasures, 

10 the owners would clamber into the wagon. One of these 
wagons, by the way, a gorgeous red one, had '^ Express'' 
painted on it in gilt letters, and was known to the younger 
children as the '^'spress" wagon. They evidently as- 
sociated the color with the term. Once while we were at 

15 Sagamore something happened to the cherished ^^'spress" 
wagon, to the distress of the children, and especially of the 
child who owned it. Their mother and I were just start- 
ing for a drive in the buggy, and we promised the bereaved 
owner that we would visit a store we knew .in East Nor- 

20wich, a village a few miles away, and bring back another 
^"spress" wagon. When we reached the store, we found 
to our dismay that the wagon which we had seen had been 
sold. We could not bear to return without the promised 
gift, for we knew that the brains of small persons are much 

25 puzzled when their elders seem to break promises. For- 
tunately, we saw in the store a delightful little bright-red 
chair and bright-red table, and these we brought home and 
handed solemnly over to the expectant recipient, explain- 
ing that as there unfortunately was not a ^^'spress" wagon 

30 we had brought him back a ^^'spress" chair and "'spress" 
table. It worked beautifully! The ^^'spress" chair and 
table were received with such rapture that we had to get 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 81 

duplicates for the other small member of the family who was 
the particular crony of the proprietor of the new treasures. 

When their mother and I returned from a row, we would 
often see the children waiting for us, running like sand- 
spiders along the beach. They always liked to swim ins 
company with a grown-up of buoyant temperament and 
inventive mind, and the float offered limitless opportu- 
nities for enjoyment while bathing. All dutiful parents 
know the game of '^stage-coach^'; each child is given a 
name, such as the whip, the nigh leader, the off-wheeler, lo 
the old lady passenger, and, under penalty of paying a 
forfeit, must get up and turn round when the grown-up, 
who is improvishing a thrilling story, mentions that par- 
ticular object; and when the word '^ stage-coach '^ is men- 
tioned, everybody has to get up and turn round. Well, we i6 
used to play stage-coach on the float while in swimming, 
and instead of tamely getting up and turning round, the 
child whose turn it was had to plunge overboard. When 
I mentioned "stage-coach," the water fairly foamed with 
vigorously kicking little legs; and then there was always 20 
a moment of interest while I counted, so as to be sure 
that the number of heads that came up corresponded with 
the number of children who had gone down. 

No man or woman will ever forget the time when some 
child lies sick of a disease that threatens its Hfe. More- 25 
over, much less serious sickness is unpleasant enough at 
the time. Looking back, however, there are elements of 
comedy in certain of the less serious cases. I well remem- 
ber one such instance which occurred when we were living 
in Washington, in a small house, with barely enough room 30 
for everybody when all the chinks were filled. Measles 



b_ ROOSEVELTS V/RITIXGS 

descended on the household. In the effort to keep the 
children that were well and those that were sick apart, 
their mother and I had to camp out in improvised fash- 
ion. When the eldest small boy was getting well, and had 
5 recovered his spirits, I slept on a sofa beside his bed — the 
sofa being so short that my feet projected over anyhow. 
One afternoon a toy organ was given to the small boy by 
a sympathetic friend. Next morning early I was waked 
to find the small boy very vivacious and requesting a 

10 story. Having drowsily told the story, I said, ^^Now, 
father^s told you a story, so you amuse yourself and let 
father go to sleep; '^ to which the small boy responded most 
\drtuously, ^'Yes, father will go to sleep and I'll play the 
organ," which he did, at a distance of two feet from my 

15 head. Later his sister, who had just come down with the 
measles, was put into the same room. The small boy was 
convalescing, and was engaged in playing on the floor 
with some tin ships, together with two or three paste- 
board monitors and rams of my own manufacture. He 

20 was giving a vivid rendering of Farragut° at Mobile Bay, 
from memories of how I told the story. My pasteboard 
rams and monitors were fascinating — if a naval architect 
may be allowed to praise his own work — and as property 
they were equally divided between the little girl and the 

25 small boy. The little girl looked on with alert suspicion 
from the bed, for she was not yet convalescent enough to 
be allowed down on the floor. The small boy was busily 
reciting the phases of the fight, which now approached its 
climax, and the little girl evidently suspected that her 

30 monitor was destined to play the part of victim. 

Little boy. "And then they steamed bang into the 
monitor." 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 83 

Little girl. '^Brother, don^t you sink my monitor!" 
Little hoy (without heeding, and hurrying toward the 
climax). ^'And the torpedo went at the monitor!" 
Little girl. "My monitor is not to sink! " 
Little boy J dramatically. "And bang the monitor sank! " s 
Little girl. "It didn^t do any such thing. My monitor 
always goes to bed at seven, and it's now quarter past. 
My monitor was in bed and couldn't sink! " 

When I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Leonard 
Wood and I used often to combine forces and take both lo 
families of children out to walk, and occasionally some of 
their playmates. Leonard Wood's son, I found, attributed 
the paternity of all of those not of his own family to me. 
Once we were taking the children across Rock Creek on a 
fallen tree. I was standing on the middle of the log trying is 
to prevent any of the children from falling off, and while 
making a clutch at one peculiarly active and heedless 
child I fell off myself. As I emerged from the water I 
heard the little Wood boy calling frantically to the 
General: "Oh! oh! The father of all the children fell into 20 
the creek!" — which made me feel like an uncommonly 
moist patriarch. 

There could be no healthier and pleasanter place in 
which to bring up children than in that nook of old-time 
America around Sagamore Hill. Certainly I never knew 25 
small people to have a better time or a better training 
for their work in after life than the three families of cousins 
at Sagamore Hill. It was real country, and— speaking 
from the somewhat detached point of view of the mascu- 
line parent — I should say there was just the proper mix- 30 
ture of freedom and control in the management of the 



84 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

children. They were never allowed to be disobedient or 
to shirk lessons or work; and they were encouraged to 
have all the fun possible. They often went barefoot, 
especially during the many hours passed in various en- 

5 thralling pursuits along and in the waters of the bay. 
They swam, they tramped, they boated, they coasted and 
skated in winter, they were intimate friends with the 
cows, chickens, pigs, and other live stock. They had in 
succession two ponies, General Grant and, when the 

10 General's legs became such tliat he lay down too often and 
too unexpectedly in the road, a calico pony named Algon- 
quin, who is still living a life of honorable leisure in the 
stable and in the pasture — where he has to be picketed, 
because otherwise he chases the cows. Sedate pony Grant 

15 used to draw the cart in which the children went driving 
when they were very small, the driver being their old 
nurse Mame, who had held their mother in her arms when 
she was born, and who was knit to them by a tie as close 
as any tie of blood. I doubt whether I ever saw Mame 

20 really offended with them except once when, out of pure 
but misunderstood affection, they named a pig after her! 
They loved pony Grant. Once I saw the then little boy 
of three hugging pony Grant's fore legs. As he leaned over, 
his broad straw hat tilted on end, and pony Grant medi- 

25tatively munched the brim; whereupon the small boy 
looked up with a wail of anguish, evidently thinking the 
pony had decided to treat him like a radish. 

The children had pets of their own, too, of course. 
Among them guinea pigs were the stand-bys — ^their highly 

3C unemotional nature fits them for companionship with ador- 
ing but over-enthusiastic young masters and mistresses. 
Then there were flying squirrels, and kangaroo rats, gentle 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 86 

and trustful, and a badger whose temper was short but 
whose nature was fundamentally friendly. The badger^s 
name was Josiah; the particular Httle boy whose property 
he was used to carry him about, clasped firmly around 
what would have been his waist if he had had any. Inas- 5 
much as when on the ground the badger would play 
energetic games of tag with the little boy and nip his bare 
legs, I suggested that it would be uncommonly disagree- 
able if he took advantage of being held in the little 
boy's arms to bite his face; but this suggestion was repelled lo 
with scorn as an unworthy assault on the character of 
Josiah. "He bites legs sometimes, but he never bites 
faces,'' said the little boy. 

We also had a young black bear whom the children 
christened Jonathan Edwards,"^ partly out of compliment 15 
to their mother, who was descended from that great 
Puritan divine, and partly because the bear possessed a 
temper in which gloom and strength were combined in 
what the children regarded as Calvinistic proportions. As 
for the dogs, of course there were many, and during their 20 
lives they were intimate and valued family friends, and 
their deaths were household tragedies. One of them, a 
large yellow animal of several good breeds and valuable 
rather because of psychical than physical traits, was 
named "Susan" by his small owners, in commemoration 25 
of another retainer, a white cow; the fact that the cow and 
the dog were not of the same sex being treated with indiff- 
erence. Much the most individual of the dogs and the one 
with the strongest character was Sailor Boy, a Chespeake 
Bay dog. He had a masterful temper and a strong sense 30 
of both dignity and duty. He would never let the other 
dogs fight, and he himself ne^^er fought unless circumstances 



86 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

imperatively demanded it; but he was a murderous animal 
when he did fight. He was not only exceedingly fond of the 
water, as was to be expected, but passionately devoted to 
gunpowder in every form, for he loved firearms and fairly 

5 reveled in the Fourth of July celebrations — the latter being 
rather hazardous occasions, as the children strongly ob- 
jected to any ^^safe and sane^' element being injected into 
them, and had the normal number of close shaves with 
rockets, Roman candles, and firecrackers. 

10 One of the stand-bys for enjojmaent, especially in rainy 
weather,was the old bam. This had been built nearly a cen- 
tury previously, and was as deUghtful as only the pleasant- 
est kind of old barn can be. It stood at the meeting-spot of 
three fences. A favorite amusement used to be an obstacle 

15 race when the barn was full of hay. The contestants were 
timed and were started successively from outside the door. 
They rushed inside, clambered over or burrowed through 
the hay, as suited them best, dropped out of a place where 
a loose board had come off, got over, through, or under the 

20 three fences, and raced back to the starting point. When 
they were little, their respective fathers were expected also 
to take part in the obstacle race, and when with the ad- 
vance of years the fathers finally refused to be contestants, 
there was a general feeling of pained regret among the 

25 children at such a decline in the sporting spirit. 

Another famous place for handicap races was Cooper's 

Bluff, a gigantic sand-bank rising from the edge of the 

bay, a mile from the house. If the tide was high there 

was an added thrill, for some of the contestants were sure 

30 to run into the water. 

As soon as the little boys learned to swim they were 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 87 

allowed to go off by themselves in rowboats and camp 
out for the night along the Sound. Sometimes I would go 
along so as to take the smaller children. Once a schooner 
was wrecked on a point half a dozen miles away. She 
held together well for a season or two after having been 5 
cleared of everything down to the timbers, and this gave 
us a chance to make camping-out trips in which the girls 
could also be included, for we put them to sleep in the 
wreck, while the boys slept on the shore: squaw picnics, 
the children called them. lo 

We had a sleigh for winter; but if, when there was much 
snow, the whole family desired to go somewhere, we would 
put the body of the farm wagon on runners and all bundle 
in together. We always liked snow at Christmas time, 
and the sleigh-ride down to the church on Christmas eve. 15 
One of the hymns always sung at this Christmas eve 
festival begins, ''It's Christmas eve on the river, it's Christ- 
mas eve on the bay.'' All good natives of the village 
firmly believed that this h^min was written here, and with 
direct reference to Oyster Bay; although if such were the 20 
case the word ''river" would have to be taken in a hyper- 
bolic sense, as the nearest approach to a river is the vil- 
lage pond. I used to share this belief myself, until my 
faith was shaken by a Denver lady who wrote that she 
had sung that hymn when a child in Michigan, and that 25 
at the present time her little Denver babies also loved 
it, although in their case the river was not represented by 
even a village pond. 

As the children grew up. Sagamore Hill remained de- 
lightful for them. There were picnics and riding parties 30 



88 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

there were dances in the north room — sometimes fancy 
dress dances — and open air plays on the green tennis 
court of one of the cousin^s houses. The children are no 
longer children now. Most of them are men and women, 

5 working out their own fates in the big world; some in our 
land, others across the great ocean or where the South- 
ern Cross blazes in the tropic night. Some of them 
have children of their own; some are working at one thing, 
some at another; in cable ships, in business offices, in 

10 factories, in newspaper offices, building steel bridges, 
bossing gravel trains and steam shovels, or laying tracks 
and superintending freight traffic. They have had their 
share of accidents and escapes; as I write, word comes 
from a far-off land that one of them, whom Seth Bullock 

15 used to call ^^Kim^' ° because he was the friend of all man- 
kind, while bossing a dangerous but necessary steel 
structural job, has had two ribs and two back teeth 
broken, and is back at work. They have known and they 
will know joy and sorrow, triumph and temporary defeat. 

20 But I believe they are all the better off because of their 
happy and healthy childhood. 

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without 
running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those 
connected with the home. No father and mother can 

25 hope to escape sorrow and anxiety, and there are dread- 
ful moments when death comes very near those we love, 
even if for the time being it passes by. But life is a great 
adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear of living. 
There are many forms of success, many forms of triumph. 

30 But there is no other success, that in any shape or way 
approaches that which is open to most of the many, many 
men and women who have the right ideals. These are 



OUTDOORS AND INDOORS 89 

the men and the women who see that it is the intimate and 
homely things that count most. They are the men and 
women who have the courage to strive for the happiness 
which comes only with labor and effort and self-sacrifice, 
and only to those whose joy in life springs in part from 5 
power of work and sense of duty. 



mSTORY 



THE BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES ^ 

Along the western frontier of the colonies that were 
so soon to be the United States, among the foothills of 
the Alleghanies, on the slopes of the wooded mountains, 
and in the long trough-like valleys that lay between the 
ranges, dwelt a peculiar and characteristically Americans 
people. . 

These frontier folk, the people of the up-country, or 
back-country, who lived near and among the forest-clad 
mountains, far away from the long-settled districts of 
flat coast plain and sluggish tidal river, were known to lo 
themselves and to others as backwoodsmen. They all 
bore a strong likeness to one another in their habits of 
thought and ways of living, and differed markedly from 
the people of the older and more civilized communities 
to the eastward. The western border of our country was is 
then formed by the great barrier-chain o of the Alleghanies, 
which ran north and south from Pennsylvania through 
Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, the trend of the 
valleys being parallel to the seacoast, and the mountains 
rising highest to the southward. It was difficult to cross 20 
the ranges from east to west, but it was both easy and 
natural to follow the valleys between. From Fort Pitt° 
to the high hill-homes of the Cherokees° this great tract 
of wooded and mountainous country possessed nearly 
the same features and characteristics, differing utterly 25 
in physical aspect from the alluvial plains bordering the 
ocean. 

^Reprinted by permission from The Winning of the West, 
copyrighted by G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

93 



94 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

So, likewise, the backwoods mountaineers who dwelt 
near the great water-shed that separates the Atlantic 
streams from the springs of the Watauga, the Kanawha, 
and the Monongahela, were all cast in the same mould, 
sand resembled each other much more than any of them 
did their immediate neighbors of the plains. The back- 
woodsmen of Pennsylvania had little in common with 
the peaceful population of Quakers^ and Germans who 
lived between the Delaware and the Susquehanna; and 

10 their near kinsmen of the Blue Ridge and the Great 
Smoky Mountains were separated by an equally wide 
gulf from the aristocratic planter communities that 
flourished in the tide-water regions of Virginia and the 
Carolinas. Near the coast the lines of division between 

15 the colonies corresponded fairly well with the differences 
between the populations; but after striking the foot-hills, 
though the political boundaries continued to go east and 
west, those both of ethnic and of physical significance 
began to run north and south. 

20 The backwoodsmen were Americans by birth and par- 
entage, and of mixed race; but the dominant strain in 
their blood was that of the Presbyterian Irish — the 
Scotch-Irish,^ as they were often called. Full credit has 
been awarded the Roundhead^ and the Cavalier^ for 

25 their leadership in our history; nor have we been alto- 
gether blind to the deeds of the Hollander and the Hugue- 
not ;° but it is doubtful if we have wholly realized the 
importance of the part played by that stern and virile 
people, the Irish, whose preachers taught the creed of 

3oKnox° and Calvin°. These Irish representatives of the 
Covenanters^ were in the West almost what the Puritans 
were in the Northeast, and more than the Cavaliers were 



BACKWOODISMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 95 

in the South. Mingled with the descendants of many 
other races, they nevertheless formed the kernel of the 
distinctively and intensely American stock who were the 
pioneers of our people in their march westward, the 
vanguard of the army of fighting settlers, who, with axes 
and rifle, won their way from the Alleghanies to the Rio 
Grande and the Pacific. 

The Presbyterian Irish were themselves already a mixed 
people. Though mainly descended from Scotch ancestors 
who came originally from both lowlands and highlands, lo 
from among both the Scotch Saxons and the Scotch Celts, — 
many of them were of English, a few of French Huguenot, 
and quite a number of true old Milesian Irish° extraction. 
They were the Protestants of the Protestants; they detested 
and despised the Catholics, whom their ancestors had is 
conquered, and regarded the Episcopalians, by whom they 
themselves had been oppressed, with a more sullen, but 
scarcely less intense, hatred. They were a truculent and 
obstinate people, and gloried in the warlike renown of 
their forefathers, the men who had followed Cromwell,°20 
and who had shared in the defence of Derry° and in the 
victories of the Boyne° and Aughrim.° 

They did not begin to come to America in any numbers 
till after the opening of the eighteenth century; by 1730 
they were fairly swarming across the ocean for the most 25 
part in two streams, the larger going to the port of 
Philadelphia, the smaller to the port of Charleston. 
Pushing through the long-settled lowlands of the sea- 
coast, they at once made their abode at the foot of the 
mountains and became the outposts of civilization. From 30 
Pennsylvania, whither the great majority had come, they 
drifted south along the foothills, and down the long valleys. 



96 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

till they met their brethren from Charleston who had 
pushed up into the Carolina back-country. In this land 
of hills, covered by unbroken forest, they took root and 
flourished, stretching in a broad belt from north to south, 

5 a shield of sinewy men thrust in between the people of 
the seaboard and the red warriors of the wilderness. All 
through this region they were alike; they had as little 
kinship with the Cavalier as with the Quaker; the West 
was won by those who have been rightly called the Round- 

10 heads of the South, the same men who, before any others, 
declared for American independence.^ 

The two facts of most importance to remember in deal- 
ing with our pioneer history are, first, that the western 
portions of Virginia and the Carolinas were peopled by 

15 an entirely different stock from that which had long 
existed in the tide-water regions of those colonies; and, 
secondly, that, except for those in the Carolinas who came 
from Charleston, the immigrants of this stock were mostly 
from the North, from their great breeding-ground and 

20 nursery in western Pennsylvania. 

That these Irish Presbyterians were a bold and hardy 
race is proved by their at once pushing past the settled 
regions, and plunging into the wilderness as the leaders of 
the white advance. They were the first and last set of 

25 immigrants to do this ; all others have merely followed in 
the wake of their predecessors. But, indeed, they were 
fitted to be Americans from the very start; they were kins- 
folk of the Covenanters; they deemed it a rehgious duty 
to interpret their own Bible, and held for a divine right the 

30 election of their own clergy. For generations their whole 
ecclesiastic and scholastic systems had been fundamen- 
tally democratic. In the hard life of the frontier they lost 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 97 

much of their reUgion, and they had but scant opportunity 
to give their children the schoohng in which they beUeved ; 
but what few meeting-houses and school-houses there were 
on the border were theirs. The numerous families of 
colonial English who came among them adopted their re- 5 
ligion if they adopted any. The creed of the backwoods- 
man who had a creed at all was Presbyterianism; for the 
Episcopacy of the tide-water lands obtained no foothold 
in the mountains, and the Methodists and Baptists had 
but just begun to appear in the West when the Revolution lo 
broke out. 

These Presbyterian Irish were, however, far from being 
the only settlers on the border, although more than any 
others they impressed the stamp of their peculiar character 
on the pioneer civilization of the West and Southwest, is 
Great numbers of immigrants of English descent came 
among them from the settled districts on the East; and 
though these later arrivals soon became indistinguishable 
from the people among whom they settled, yet they cer- 
tainly sometimes added a tone of their own to backwoods 20 
society, giving it here and there a slight dash of what we 
are accustomed to consider the distinctively southern or 
cavaHer spirit. There was likewise a large German ad- 
mixture not only from the Germans of Pennsylvania, but 
also from those of the Carolinas. A good many Huguenots 25 
likewise came, and a few Hollanders and even Swedes, 
from the banks of the Delaware, or perhaps from farther 
off still. 

A single generation, passed under the hard conditions 
of life in the wilderness, was enough to weld together into 30 
one people the representatives of these numerous and 
widely different races; and the children of the next gener- 



98 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

ation became indistinguishable from one another. Long be- 
fore the first Continental Congress assembled, the back- 
woodsmen, whatever their blood, had become Americans, 
one in speech, thought, and character, clutching firmly the 
5 land in which their fathers and grandfathers had lived 
before them. They had lost all remembrance of Europe 
and all sjmipathy with things European; they had become 
as emphatically products native to the soil as were the 
tough and supple hickories out of which they fashioned the 

10 handles of their long, light axes. Their grim, harsh, 
narrow lives were yet strangely fascinating and full of 
adventurous toil and danger; none but natures as strong, 
as freedom-loving, and as full of bold defiance as theirs 
could have endured existence on the terms which these 

15 men found pleasurable. Their iron surroundings made a 
mould which turned out all alike in the same shape. They 
resembled one another, and they differed from the rest 
of the world — even the world of America, and infinitely 
more, the world of Europe — in dress, in customs, and in 

20 mode of life. 

Where their lands abutted on the more settled districts 
to the eastward, the population was of course thickest, and 
their peculiarities least. Here and there at such points 
they built small backwoods burgs or towns, rude, strag- 

25 gling, unkempt villages, with a store or two, a tavern, — 
sometimes good, often a^^ scandalous hog-sty,'^ where trav- 
ellers were devoured by fleas, and every one slept and ate in 
oneroom, — asmall log school-house, and a little church,pre- 
sided over by a hard-featured Presbyterian preacher, gloomy, 

30 earnest, and zealous, probably bigoted and narrow-minded, 

but nevertheless a great power for good in the community. 

However, the backwoodsmen as a class neither built 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 99 

towns nor loved to dwell therein. They were to be seen 
at their best in the vast, interminable forests that formed 
their chosen home. They won and kept their lands by 
force, and ever lived either at w^ar or in dread of war. 
Hence they settled always in groups of several families 5 
each, all banded together for mutual protection. Their 
red foes were strong and terrible, cunning in council, 
dreadful in battle, merciless beyond belief in victory. The 
men of the border did not overcome and dispossess cowards 
and weaklings; they marched forth to spoil the stout- lo 
hearted and to take for a prey the possessions of the men 
of might. Every acre, every rood of ground which they 
claimed had to be cleared by the axe and held w4th the 
rifle. Not only was the chopping down of the forests the 
first preliminary to cultivation, but it was also the surest io 
means of subduing the Indians, to whom the unending 
stretches of choked woodland w^ere an impenetrable cover 
behind which to move unseen, a shield in making assaults, 
and a strong tower of defence in repelling counter-attacks. 
In the conquest of the West the backwoods axe, shapely, 20 
well-poised, with long haft and light head, was a servant 
hardly standing second even to the rifle; the two were 
the national weapons of the American backwoodsman, and 
in their use he has never been excelled. 

When a group of families moved out into the wilderness 25 
they built themselves a station or stockade fort: a square 
palisade of upright logs, loop-holed, with strong block- 
houses as bastions at the comers. One side at least was 
generally formed by the backs of the cabins themselves, 
all standing in a row; and there was a great door or gate, 30 
that could be strongly barred in case of need. Often no 
iron whatever was employed in any of the buildings. The 



100 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

square inside contained the provision sheds and frequently 
a strong central blockhouse as well. These forts, of 
course, could not stand against cannon, and they were 
always in danger when attacked with fire; but save for 
5 this risk of burning they were very effectual defences 
against men without artillery, and were rarely taken, 
whether by whites or Indians, except by surprise. Few 
other buildings have played so important a part in our 
history as the rough stockade fort of the backwoods. 

10 The families only lived in the fort when there was war 
with the Indians, and even then not in the winter. At 
other times they all separated out to their owtl farms, 
universally called clearings, as they were always made b}^ 
first cutting off the timber. The stumps were left to dot 

U the fields of grain and Indian corn. The corn in especial 
was the stand-by and invariable resource of the western 
settler; it was the crop on which he relied to feed his 
family, and when hunting or on a war-trail the parched 
grains were carried in his leather wallet to serve often as 

20 his only food. But he planted orchards and raised melons, 
potatoes, and many other fruits and vegetables as well; 
and he had usually a horse or two, cows, and perhaps hogs 
and sheep, if the wolves and bears did not interfere. If he 
was poor his cabin was made of unhewn logs, and held 

25 but a single room; if well-to-do, the logs were neatly 
hewed, and besides the large living- and eating-room with 
its huge stone fireplace, there was also a small bedroom 
and a kitchen, while a ladder led to the loft above, in 
which the boys slept. The floors were made of puncheons, 

30 great slabs of wood hewed carefully out, and the roof of 
clapboards. Pegs of wood were thrust into the sides of 
the house, to serve instead of a wardrobe; and buck 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 101 

antlers, thrust into joists, held the ever-ready rifles. The 
table was a great clapboard set on four wooden legs; there 
were three-legged stools, and in the better sort of houses 
old-fashioned rocking-chairs. The couch or bed was 
warmly covered with blankets, bearskins, and deer-hides. 5 

These clearings lay far apart from one another in the 
wilderness. Up to the door-sills of the log-huts stretched 
the solemn and mysterious forest. There were no openings 
to break its continuity; nothing but endless leagues on 
leagues of shadowy, wolf-haunted woodland. The great lo 
trees towered aloft till their separate heads were lost in 
the mass of foliage above, and the rank underbrush choked 
the spaces between the trunks. On the higher peaks and 
ridge-crests of the mountains there were straggling birches 
and pines, hemlocks and balsam firs; elsewhere, oaks, is 
chestnuts, hickories, maples, beeches, walnuts, and great 
tulip-trees grew side by side with many other kinds. The 
sunlight could not penetrate the roofed archway of mur- 
muring leaves; through the gray aisles of the forest men 
walked always in a kind of midday gloaming. Those who 20 
had lived in the open plains felt when they came to the 
backwoods as if their heads were hooded. Save on the 
border of a lake, from a cliff-top, or on a bald knob — that 
is, a bare hill-shoulder, — they could not any^vhere look 
out for any distance. 25 

All the land was shrouded in one vast forest. It covered 
the mountains from crest to river-bed, filled the plains, 
and stretched in sombre and melancholy wastes towards 
the Mississippi. All that it contained, all that lay hid 
within it and beyond it, none could tell; men only knew 30 
that their boldest hunters, however deeply they had pene- 
trated, had not yet gone through it, that it was the home 



102 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

of the game they followed and the wild beasts that preyed 
on their flocks, and that deep in its tangled depths lurked 
their red foes, hawk-eyed and wolf -hearted. 

Backwoods society was simple, and the duties and rights 
5 of each member of the family were plain and clear. The 
man was the armed protector and provider, the bread- 
winner; the woman was the housewife and child-bearer. 
They married young and their families were large, for 
they were strong and healthy, and their success in life 

10 depended on their own stout arms and willing hearts. 
There was everywhere great equality of conditions. Land 
was plenty and all else scarce; so courage, thrift and in- 
dustry were sure of their reward. All had small farms, 
with the few stock necessary to cultivate them; the farms 

15 being generally placed in the hollows, the division lines 
between them, if they were close together, being the tops of 
the ridges and the watercourses, especially the former. 
The buildings of each farm were usually at its lowest 
point, as if in the centre of an amphitheater. Each was 

20 on an average of about four hundred acres, but sometimes 
more. Tracts of low, swampy grounds, possibly some 
miles from the cabin, were cleared for meadows, the fodder 
being stacked, and hauled home in winter. 

Each backwoodsman was not only a small farmer but 

25 also a hunter; for his wife and children depended for their 
meat upon the venison and bear's flesh procured by his 
rifle. The people were restless and always on the move. 
After being a little while in a place, some of the men would 
settle down permanently, while others would again drift 

30 off, farming and hunting alternately to support their 
families. The backwoodsman's dress was in great part 
borrowed from his Indian foes. He wore a fur cap or 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 103 

felt hat, moccasins, and either loose, thin trousers, or 
else simply leggings of buckskin or elk-hide, and the 
Indian breech-clout. He was always clad in the fringed 
hunting-shirt, of homespun or buckskin, the most pic- 
turesque and distinctively national dress ever worn ins 
America. It 'was a loose smock or tunic, reaching nearly 
to the knees, and held in at the waist by a broad belt, 
from which hung the tomahawk and scalping-knife. His 
weapon was the long, small-bore, flint-lock rifle, clumsy, 
and ill-balanced, but exceedingly accurate. It was lo 
very hea\y, and when upright, reached to the chin of a 
tall man; for the barrel of thick, soft iron, was four feet 
in length, while the stock was short, and the butt scooped 
out. Sometimes it was plain, sometimes ornamented. It 
was generally bored out — or, as the expression then was, 15 
*' sawed out^^ — to carry a ball of seventy, more rarely of 
thirty or forty, to the pound ; and was usually of backwoods 
manufacture. The marksman almost always fired from 
a rest, and rarely at a very long range; and the shooting 
was marvellously accurate. 20 

In the backwoods there was very little money; barter 
was the common form of exchange, and peltries were 
often used as a circulating medium, a beaver, otter, 
fisher, dressed buckskin or large bearskin being reckoned 
as equal to two foxes or wildcats, four coons, or eight 25 
minks. A young man inherited nothing from his father 
but his strong frame and eager heart; but before him lay 
a whole continent wherein to pitch his farm, and he felt 
ready to marry as soon as he became of age, even though 
he had nothing but his clothes, his horses, his axe, and 30 
his rifle. If a girl was well off, and had been careful and 
industrious, she might herself bring a dowry, of a cow 



104 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

and a calf, a brood mare, a bed well stocked with blankets, 
and a chest containing her clothes — the latter not very 
elaborate, for a woman's dress consisted of a hat or poke 
bonnet, a "bed gown'' perhaps a jacket, and a Hnsey 

5 petticoat, while her feet were thrust into coarse shoe- 
packs or moccasins. Fine clothes were rare; a suit of 
such cost more than two hundred acres of good land. 

The first lesson the backwoodsmen learnt was the 
necessity of self-help; the next, that such a community 

10 could only thrive if all joined in helping one another. 
Log-rollings, house-raisings, house-warmings, corn-shuck- 
ings, quiltings, and the like were occasions when all the 
neighbors came together to do what the family itself 
could hardly accomplish alone. Every such meeting was 

15 the occasion of a frolic and dance for the young people, 
whisky and rum being plentiful, and the host exerting 
his utmost power to spread the table with backwood 
delicacies — bear-meat and venison, vegetables from the 
*' truck-patch," where squashes, melons, beans, and the 

20 like were grown, Vild fruits, bowls of milk, and apple pies, 
which were the acknowledged standard of luxury. At 
the better houses there was metheglin or small beer, cider, 
cheese, and biscuits. Tea was so little known that many 
of the backwoods people were not aware it was a beverage 

25 and at first attempted to eat the leaves with salt or butter. 

The young men prided themselves on their bodily 

strength, and were always eager to contend against one 

another in athletic games, such as wrestling, racing, 

jumping, and lifting flour-barrels; and they also sought 

30 distinction in vieing with one another at their work. 
Sometimes they strove against one another singly, some- 
times they divided into parties, each bending all its 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 105 

energies to be first in shucking a given heap of corn or 
cutting (with sickles) an alio ted patch of wheat. Among 
the men the bravos or bullies often were dandies also, in 
the backwoods fashions, wearing their hair long and 
delighting in the rude finery of hunting-shirts embroidered 5 
with porcupine quills; they were loud, boastful, and pro- 
fane, given to coarsely bantering one another. Brutally 
savage fights were frequent; the combatants, who were 
surrounded by rings of interested spectators, striking, 
kicking, biting, and gouging. The fall of one of them lo 
did not stop the fight, for the man who was down was 
maltreated without mercy until he called " enough. '' 
The victor always bragged savagely of his prowess, often 
leaping on a stump, crowing and flapping his arms. This 
last was a thoroughly American touch; but otherwise is 
one of these contests was less a boxing match than a 
kind of backwoods pankration° no less revolting than its 
ancient prototype of Olympic fame. Yet, if the uncouth 
borderers were as brutal as the highly polished Greeks, 
they were more manly; defeat was not necessarily con- 20 
sidered disgrace, a man often fighting when he was certain 
to be beaten, while the onlookers neither hooted nor 
pelted the conquered. We first hear of the noted Indian 
fighter, Simon Kenton,° as leaving a rival for dead after 
one of these ferocious duels, and fleeing from his home 25 
in terror of the punishment that might follow the deed. 
Such fights were specially frequent when the backwoods- 
men went into the little frontier towns to see horse-races 
or fairs. 

A wedding was always a time of festival. If there was 30 
a church anywhere near, the bride rode thither on horse- 
back behind her father, and after the service her pillion^ 



106 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

was shifted to the bridegroom's steed. If, as generally- 
happened, there was no church, the groom and his friends, 
all armed, rode to the house of the bride's father, plenty 
of whisky being drunk, and the men racing recklessly 
5 along the narrow bridle-paths, for there were few roads or 
wheeled vehicles in the backwoods. At the bride's house 
the ceremony was performed, and then a huge dinner was 
eaten; after which the fiddling and dancing began, and 
were continued all the afternoon, and most of the night 

10 as well. A party of girls stole off the bride and put her 
to bed in the loft above; and a party of young men then 
performed the like service for the groom. The fun was 
hearty and coarse, and the toasts always included one to 
the young couple with the wish that they might have 

15 many big children; for as long as they could remember 
the backwoodsmen had lived at war while looking ahead 
they saw no chance of its ever stopping, and so each son 
was regarded as a future warrior, a help to the whole 
community. The neighbors all joined again in chop- 

20 ping and rolUng the logs for the young couple's future 
house, then in raising the house itself, and finally in feast- 
ing and dancing at the house-warming. 

Funerals were simple, the dead body being carried to 
the grave in a coffin slung on poles and borne by four 

25 men. 

There was not much schooling, and few boys or girls 
learnt much more than reading, writing, and ciphering 
up to the rule of three. Where the school-houses existed 
they were only dark, mean log-huts, and, if in the south- 

3oern colonies, were generally placed in the so-called ^^old 
fields," or abandoned farms grown up with pines. The 
schoolmaster boarded about with the families; his learn- 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGH AMIES 107 

ing was rarely great, nor was his discipline good, in spite 
of the frequency and severity of the canings. The price 
for such tuition was at the rate of twenty shillings a year, 
in Pennsylvania currency. 

Each family did everything that could be done for 5 
itself. The father and sons worked with axe, hoe, and 
sickle. Almost every house contained a loom, and al- 
most every woman was a weaver. Linsey-woolsey, made 
from flax grown near the cabin, and of wool from the 
backs of the few sheep, was the warmest and most sub- lo 
stantial cloth; and when the flax crop failed and the 
flocks were destroyed by wolves, the children had but 
scanty covering to hide their nakedness. The man tanned 
the buckskin, the woman was tailor and shoemaker, and 
made the deerskin sifters to be used instead of bolting- i5 
cloths. There were a few pewter spoons in use; but the 
table furniture consisted mainly of hand-made trenchers, 
platters, noggins, ° and bowls. The cradle was of peeled 
hickory bark. Ploughshares had to be imported, but har- 
rows and sleds were made without difficulty; and the coop- 20 
er work was well done. Chaff beds were thrown on the 
floor of the loft, if the house-owner was well off. Each 
cabin had a hand-mill and a hominy-block; the last was 
borrowed from the Indians, and was only a large block 
of wood, with a hole burned in the top, as a mortar, where 25 
the pestle was worked. If there were any sugar maples 
accessible, they were tapped every year. 

But some articles, especially salt and iron, could not 
be produced in the backwoods. In order to get them 
each family collected during the year all the furs possible, 30 
these being valuable and yet easily carried on pack-horses, 
the sole means of transport. Then, after seeding time, 



108 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

in the fall, the people of a neighborhood ordinarily joined 
in sending down a train of peltry-laden pack-horses to 
some large seacoast or tidal-river trading town, where 
their burdens were bartered for the needed iron and salt. 
5 The unshod horses all had bells hung round their necks; 
the clappers were stopped during the day, but when the 
train was halted for the night, and the horses were hob- 
bled and turned loose, the bells were once more un- 
stopped. Several men accompanied each little caravan, 

10 and sometimes they drove with them steers and hogs to 
sell on the seacoast. A bushel of alum salt was worth a 
good cow and calf, and as each of the poorly fed, under- 
sized pack-animals could carry but two bushels, the 
mountaineers prized it greatly, and, instead of salting or 

15 pickling their venison, they jerked it by drying it in the 
sun or smoking it over a fire. 

The life of the backwoodsmen was one long struggle. 
The forest had to be felled; droughts, deep snows, freshets, 
cloudbursts, forest fires, and all the other dangers of a 

20 wilderness life faced. Swarms of deer-flies, mosquitoes, 
and midges rendered life a torment in the weeks of 
hot weather. Rattlesnakes and copperheads were very 
plentiful, and, the former especially constant sources 
of danger and death. Wolves and bears were incessant 

25 and inveterate foes of the live stock, and the cougar, or 
panther, occasionally attacked man as well. More ter- 
rible still, the wolves sometimes went mad, and the men 
who then encountered them were almost certain to be 
bitten and to die of hydrophobia. 

30 Every true backwoodsman was a hunter. Wild turkeys 
were plentiful. The pigeons at times filled the woods 
with clouds that hid the sun and broke down the branches 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 109 

on their roosting-grounds as if a whirlwind had passed. 
The black and gray squirrels swarmed, devastating the 
corn-fields, and at times gathering in immense com- 
panies and migrating across mountain and river. The 
hunter^s ordinary game was the deer, and after that thes 
bear; the elk was already growing uncommon. No form 
of labor is harder than the chase, and none is so fascinat- 
ing nor so excellent as a training-school for war. The 
successful still-hunter of necessity possessed skill in 
hiding and in creeping noiselessly upon the wary quarry, lo 
as well as in imitating the notes and calls of the different 
beasts and birds; skill in the use of the rifle and in throw- 
ing the tomahawk he already had; and he perforce ac- 
quired keenness of eye, thorough acquaintance with 
woodcraft, and the power of standing the severest strains is 
of fatigue, hardship, and exposure. He lived out in the 
woods for many months w^ith no food but meat, and no 
shelter whatever, unless he made a lean-to of brush or 
crawled into a hollow sycamore. 

Such training stood the frontier folk in good stead 20 
when they were pitted against the Indians; without it 
they could not even have held their own, and the white 
advance would have been absolutely checked. Our 
frontiers were pushed westward by the warlike skill and 
adventurous personal prowess of the individual settlers; 25 
regular armies by themselves could have done little. For 
one square mile the regular armies added to our domain, 
the settlers added ten, — a hundred would probably be 
nearer the truth. A race of peaceful, unwarlike farmers 
would have been helpless before such foes as the red 30 
Indians, and no auxiliary military force could have pro- 
tected them or enabled them to move westward. Colon- 



110 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

ists fresh from the Old World, no matter how thrifty, 
steady-going, and industrious, could not hold their own 
on the frontier; they had to settle where they were pro- 
tected from the Indians by a living barrier of bold and 

5 self-reliant American borderers. The West would never 

have been settled save for the fierce courage and the 

eager desire to brave danger so characteristic of the 

stalwart backwoodsmen. 

These armed hunters, woodchoppers, and farmers 

10 were their own soldiers. They built and manned their 
own forts; they did their own fighting under their own 
commanders. There were no regiments of regular troops 
along the frontier. In the event of an Indian inroad 
each borderer had to defend himself until there was time 

15 for them all to gather together to repel or avenge it. Every 
man was accustomed to the use of arms from his child- 
hood; when a boy was twelve j^ears old he was given a 
rifle and made a fort-soldier, with a loophole where he 
was to stand if the station was attacked. The war was 

20 never-ending, for even the times of so-called peace were 
broken by forays and murders; a man might grow from 
babyhood to middle age on the border, and yet never 
remember a year in which some one of his neighbors did 
not fall a victim to the Indians. 

25 There was everywhere a rude military organization, 
which included all the able-bodied men of the commun- 
ity. Every settlement had its colonels and captains; but 
these officers, both in their training and in the authority 
they exercised, corresponded much more nearly to Indian 

30 chiefs than to the regular army men whose titles they 
bore. They had no means whatever of enforcing their 
orders, and their tumultuous and disorderly levies of 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 111 

sinewy riflemen were hardly as well disciplined as the 
Indians themselves. The superior officer could advise, 
entreat, lead, and influence his men, but he could not 
command them, or, if he did, the men obeyed him only 
just so far as it suited them. If an officer planned as 
scout or campaign, those who thought proper accompanied 
him, and the others stayed at home, and even those who 
went out came back if the fit seized them, or perchance 
followed the lead of an insubordinate junior officer whom 
they liked better then they did his superior. There lo 
was no compulsion to perform military duties beyond 
dread of being disgraced in the eyes of the neighbors, 
and there w^as no pecuniar j^ reward for performing them; 
nevertheless the moral sentiment of a backwoods com- 
munity was too robust to tolerate habitual remissness is 
in military affairs, and the coward and laggard were 
treated with utter scorn, and were generally in the end 
either laughed out, or "hated out,'' of the neighbor- 
hood, or else got rid of in a still more summary manner. 
Among people naturally brave and reckless, this pubUc20 
opinion acted fairly effectively, and there was generally 
but Uttle shrinking from mihtary service. 

A backwoods le\y was formidable because of the high 
average courage and prowess of the individuals composing 
it; it was on its own ground much more effective than 25 
a like force of regular soldiers, but of course it could not 
be trusted on a long campaign. The backwoodsmen 
used their rifles better than the Indians, and also stood 
punishment better, but they never matched them in 
surprises nor in skill in taking advantage of cover, and 30 
very rarely equalled their discipUne in the battle itself. 
After all, the pioneer was primarily a husbandman; the 



112 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

time spent in chopping trees and tilling the soil his foe 
spent in preparing for or practising forest warfare, and so 
the former, thanks to the exercise of the very qualities 
which in the end gave him the possession of the soil, could 
5 not, as a rule, hope to rival his antagonist in the actual 
conflict itself. When large bodies of the red men and 
white borderers were pitted against each other, the former 
were if anything the more likely to have the advantage. 
But the whites soon copied from the Indians their system 
10 of individual and private warfare, and the}^ probably 
caused their foes far more damage and loss in this 
way than in the large expeditions. Many noted border 
scouts and Indian fighters — such men as Boon, Kenton, 
Wetzel, Brady, McCulloch, Mansker — grew to over- 
is match their Indian foes at their own game, and held 
themselves above the most renowned warriors. But 
these men carried the spirit of defiant self-reliance to 
such an extreme that their best work was always done 
when they were alone or in small parties of but four or 
20 five. They made long forays after scalps and horses, 
going a wonderful distance, enduring extreme hardship, 
risking the most terrible of deaths, and harrying the 
hostile tribes into a madness of terror and revengeful 
hatred. 
25 As it was in military matters, so it was with the ad- 
ministration of justice by the frontiersman; they had few 
courts, and knew but little law, and yet they contrived 
to preserve order and morality with rough effectiveness, 
by combining to frown down on the grosser misdeeds, 
30 and to punish the more flagrant misdoers. Perhaps the 
spirit in which they acted can best be shown by the recital 
of an incident in the career of the three McAfee brothers, 



BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 113 

who were among the pioneer hunters of Kentucky. Pre- 
vious to trying to move their famihes out to the new 
country, they made a cache of clothing, implements, 
and provisions, which in their absence was broken into 
and plundered. They caught the thief, "a little diminu-5 
tive, red-headed white man,^^ a runaway convict servant 
from one of the tide-water counties of Virginia. In the 
first impulse of anger at finding that he was the criminal, 
one of the McAfees rushed at him to kill him with his 
tomahawk; but the weapon turned, the man was only lo 
knocked down, and his assailant's gusty anger subsided 
as quickly as it had risen, giving way to a desire to do stern 
but fair justice. So the three captors formed themselves 
into a court, examined into the case, heard the man in 
his own defence, and after due consultation decided that is 
"according to their opinion of the laws he had forfeited 
his life, and ought to be hung,'^ but none of them were 
willing to execute the sentence in cold blood, and they 
ended by taking their prisoner back to his master. 

The incident was characteristic in more than one way. 20 
The prompt desire of the backwoodsman to avenge his 
own wrong; his momentary furious anger, speedily quelled 
and replaced by a dogged determination to be fair but to 
exact full retribution; the acting entirely without regard 
to legal forms or legal officials, but yet in a spirit which 25 
spoke well for the doer's determination to uphold the 
essentials that make honest men law-abiding; together 
with the good faith of the whole proceeding, and the 
amusing ignorance that it would have been in the least 
unlawful to execute their own rather harsh sentence — all 30 
these were typical frontier traits. Some of the same 
traits appear in the treatment commonly adopted in 



114 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

the backwoods to meet the case — of painfully frequent 
occurrence in the times of Indian wars — where a man 
taken prisoner by the savages, and supposed to be mur- 
dered, returned after two or three years' captivity, only 

5 to find his wife married again. In the wilderness a hus- 
band was almost a necessity to a woman; her surroundings 
made the loss of the protector and provider an appalling 
calamity; and the widow, no matter how sincere her 
sorrow, soon remarried — for there were many suitors 

10 where women were not over-plenty. If in such a case 
the one thought dead returned, the neighbors and the 
parties interested seem frequently to have held a sort of 
informal court, and to have decided that the woman 
should choose either of the two men she wished to be her 

15 husband, the other being pledged to submit to the deci- 
sion and leave the settlement. Evidently no one had the 
least idea that there was any legal irregularity in such 
proceedings. 

The McAfees themselves and the escaped convict 

20 servant whom they captured typify the two prominent 
classes of the backwoods people. The frontier, in spite 
of the outward uniformity of means and manners, is 
pre-eminently the place of sharp contrasts. The two 
extremes of society — the strongest, best, and most adven- 

25 turous, and the weakest, most shiftless, and vicious — are 
which seem naturally to drift to the border. Most of the 
men who came to the backwoods to hew out homes and 
rear families were stern, manly, and honest; but there was 
also a large influx of people drawn from the worst immi- 

30 grants that perhaps ever were brought to America — the 
mass of convict servants, redemptioners, and the like, who 
formed such an excessively undesirable substratum to the 



BACKSWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 115 

otherwise excellent population of the tide-water regions 
in Virginia and the Carolinas. Many of the southern 
crackers or poor whites spring from this class, which 
also in the backwoods gave birth to generations of violent 
and hardened criminals, and to an even greater numbers 
of shiftless, lazy, cowardly cumberers of the earth^s 
surface. They had in many places a permanently bad 
effect upon the tone of the whole community. 

Moreover, the influence of heredity was no more plainly 
perceptible than was the extent of individual variation, lo 
If a member of a bad family wished to reform, he had 
every opportunity to do so; if a member of a good family 
had vicious propensities, there was nothing to check them. 
All qualities, good and bad, are intensified and accen- 
tuated in the life of the wilderness. The man who in is 
civilization is merely sullen and bad-tempered becomes a 
murderous, treacherous ruffian when transplanted to the 
wilds; while, on the other hand, his cheery, quiet neigh- 
bor develops into a hero, ready uncomplainingly to lay 
down his life for his friend. One who in an eastern cityao 
is merely a backbiter and slanderer, in the western woods 
lies in wait for his foe with a rifle; sharp practice in the 
East becomes highway robbery in the West; but at the 
same time negative good-nature becomes active self- 
sacrifice, and a general belief in virtue is translated into 25 
a prompt and determined war upon vice. The ne^er-do- 
well of a family who in one place has his debts paid a 
couple of times and is then forced to resign from his clubs 
and lead a cloudy but innocuous existence on a small pen- 
sion, in the other abruptly finishes his career by being 30 
hung for horse-stealing. 

In the backwoods the lawless led lives of abandoned 



116 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

wickedness; they hated good for good's sake, and did their 
utmost to destroy it. Where the bad element was large 
gangs of horse-thieves, highwaymen, and other criminals 
often united with the uncontrollable young men of vicious 

5 tastes, who were given to gambling, fighting and the like. 
They then formed half-secret organizations, often of 
great extent and with wide ramifications; and if they 
could control a community they established a reign of 
terror, driving out both ministers and magistrates, and 

10 killing without scruple those who interfered with them. 
The good men in such a case banded themselves together 
as regulators and put down the wicked with ruthless 
severity, by the exercise of lynch law, shooting and hang- 
ing the worst off-hand. 

15 Jails were scarce in the wilderness, and often were en- 
tirely wanting in a district, which, indeed, was quite 
likely to lack legal officers also. If punishment was 
inflicted at all it was apt to be severe, and took the form 
of death or whipping. An impromptu jury of neighbors 

20 decided with a rough-and-ready sense* of fair play and 
justice what punishment the crime demanded, and then 
saw to the execution of their own decree. ^Yhipping was 
the usual reward of theft. Occasionally, torture was 
resorted to,»but not often; and, to their honor be it said, 

25 the backwoodsmen were horrified at the treatment ac- 
corded both to black slaves and to white convict serv^ants 
in the lowlands. 

They were superstitious, of course, believing in witch- 
craft and signs and omens; and it may be noted that 

30 their superstition showed a singular mixture of old-world 
survivals and of practices borrowed from the savages or 
evolved by the very force of their strange surroundings. 



BACKSWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES 117 

At the bottom they were deeply religious in their tenden- 
cies; and although ministers and meeting-houses were 
rare, yet the backwoods cabins often contained Bibles, 
and the mothers used to instil into the minds of their 
children reverence for Sunday, while many even of the 5 
hunters refused to hunt on that day. Those of them who 
knew the right honestly tried to live up to it, in spite of 
the manifold temptations to backsliding offered by their 
lives of hard and fierce contention. But Calvinism, though 
more congenial to them than Episcopacy, and infinitely lo 
more so than Catholicism, was too cold for the fiery hearts 
of the borderers; they were not stirred to the depths of 
their natures till other creeds, and, above all, Methodism, 
worked their way into the wilderness. 

Thus the backwoodsmen lived on the clearings they 15 
had hewed out of the everlasting forest; a grim, stern 
people, strong and simple, powerful for good and evil, 
swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the love of freedom 
rooted in their very hearts' core. Their lives were harsh 
and narrow, they ^gained their bread by their blood and 20 
sweat, in the unending struggle with the wild ruggedness of 
nature. They suffered terrible injuries at the hands of the 
red men, and on their foes they waged a terrible warfare 
in return. They were relentless, revengeful, suspicious, 
knowing neither ruth nor pity; they were also upright, 2S 
resolute, and fearless, loyal to their friends, and devoted 
to their country. In spite of their many failings, they 
were of all men the best fitted to conquer the wilderness 
and hold it against all comers. 



THE HISTORIAN OF THE FUTURE ^ 

The great historian of the future will have easy access 
to innumerable facts patiently gathered by tens of thou- 
sands of investigators, whereas the great historian of 
the past had very few facts, and often had to gather most 

5 of these himself. The great historian of the future can- 
not be excused if he fails to draw on the vast storehouses 
of knowledge that have been accumulated, if he fails to 
profit by the wisdom and work of other men, which are 
now the common property of all intelligent men. He 

10 must use the instruments which the historians of the 
past did not have ready to hand. Yet even with these 
instruments he cannot do as good work as the best of 
the elder historians unless he has vision and imagination, 
the power to grasp what is essential and to reject the 

15 infinitely more numerous nonessentials, the power to 
embody ghosts, to put flesh and blood on dry bones, to 
make dead men living before our eyes. ^ In short he must 
have the power to take the science of history and turn 
it into literature. 

20 Those who wish history to be treated as a purely 
utilitarian science often decry the recital of the mighty 
deeds of the past, the deeds which always have aroused, 
and for a long period to come are likely to arouse, most 
interest. These men say that we should study not the 

25 unusual but the usual. They say that we profit most by 

1 Reprinted from the version of the address, ''History as 
Literature,^' which appeared in the Boston Transcript. The 
address is included in the volume History as Literature,. 

118 



THE HISTORIAN OF THE FUTURE 119 

laborious research into the drab monotony of the ordinary, 
rather than by fixing our eyes on the purple patches that 
break it. Beyond all question the great historian, of the 
future must keep ever in mind the relative importance 
of the usual and the unusual. If he is a really greats 
historian, if he possesses the highest imaginative and 
literary quaUty, he will be able to interest us in the gray 
tints of the general landscape no less than in the flame 
hues of the jutting peaks. It is even more essential to 
have such quahty in writing of the commonplace than lO 
in writing of the exceptional. Otherwise no profit will 
come from study of the ordinary; for writings are useless 
unless they are read, and they cannot be read unless 
they are readable. Furthermore, while doing full justice 
to the importance of the usual, of the commonplace, the is 
great historian will not lose sight of the importance of 
the heroic. 

It is hard to tell just what it is that is most important 
to know. The wisdom of one generation may seem the 
folly of the next. This is just as true of the wisdom of 20 
the dry-as-dusts as of the wisdom of those who write 
interestingly. ]\Ioreover, while the value of the by- 
products of knowledge does not readily yield itself to 
quantitative expression, it is none the less real. A 
utilitarian education should undoubtedly be the foun-2S 
dation of all education. But it is far from advisable, it 
is far from wise, to have it the end of all education. 
Technical training will more and more be accepted as 
the prime factor in our educational system, a factor as 
essential for the farmer, the blacksmith, the seamstress, 30 
and the cook, as for the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer, 
and the stenographer. For similar reasons the purely 



120 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

practical and technical lessons of history, the lessons 
that help us to grapple with our immediate social and 
industrial problems, will also receive greater emphasis 
than ever before. But if we are wise we will no more 

5 permit this practical training to exclude knowledge of 
that part of literature which is history than of that part 
of literature which is poetry. Side by side with the need 
for the perfection of the individual in the technique of 
his special calling goes the need of broad human sympathy, 

10 and the need of lofty and generous emotion in that in- 
diividual. Only thus can the citizenship of the modern 
state rise level to the complex modern social needs. . . . 

The work of the archaeologist, the work of the an- 
thropologist, the work of the palseo-ethnologist — out of 

15 all these a great literary historian may gather material 
indispensable for his use. He, and we, ought fully to 
acknowledge our debt to the collectors of these in- 
dispensable facts. The investigator in any line may do 
work which puts us all under lasting obligations to him, 

20 even though he be totally deficient in the art of literary 
expression, that is, totally deficient in the ability to 
convey vivid and lifelike pictures to others of the past 
whose secrets he has laid bare. I would give no scanty 
or grudging acknowledgment to the deeds of such a man, 

25 He does a lasting service; whereas the man who tries to 
make literary expression cover his ignorance or mis- 
reading of facts renders less than no service. But the 
service done is immeasurably increased in value when 
the man arises who from his study of a myriad dead 

30 fragments is able to paint some living picture of the 
past. 



THE HISTORIAN OF THE FUTURE 121 

This is why the record as great writers preserve it has 
a value immeasurably beyond what is merely lifeless. 
Such a record pulses with immortal life. It may recount 
the deed or the thought of a hero at some supreme mo- 
ment. It may be merely the portrayal of homely every- 5 
day hfe. This matters not, so long as in either event 
the genius of the historian enables him to paint in colors 
that do not fade. The cry of the Ten Thousand^ when 
they first saw the sea still stirs the hearts of men. The 
ruthless death scene between Jehu° and Jezebel; wicked lo 
Ahab,° smitten by the chance arrow, and propped in 
his chariot until he died at sundown; Josiah,° losing his 
life because he would not heed the Pharaoh's solemn 
warning, and mourned by all the singing men and all the 
singing women — the fates of these kings and of this king's is 
daughter, are part of the common stock of knowledge 
of mankind. Thej^ were petty rulers of petty principal- 
ities; yet, compared with them, mighty conquerors, 
who added empire to empire, Shalmaneser"^ and Sargon, 
Amenhotep and Rameses, are but shadows; for the deeds 20 
and the deaths of the kings of Judah and Israel are 
written in words that, once read, cannot be forgotten. 
The Peloponnesian War° bulks of unreal size to-day be- 
cause it once seemed thus to bulk to a master mind. Only 
a great historian can fittingly deal with a very great sub- 25 
ject; yet because the qualities of chief interest in human 
history can be shown on a small field no less than on a large 
one, some of the greatest historians have treated sub- 
jects that only their own genius rendered great. 

So true is this that if great events lack a great historian, 30 
and a great poet writes about them, it is the poet who 
fixes them in the mind of mankind, so that in after-time 



122 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

importance the real has become the shadow and the 
shadow the reaUty. Shakespeare has definitely fixed the 
character of the Richard III,° of whom ordinary men 
think and speak. Keats° forgot even the right name of 
5 the man who first saw the Pacific Ocean; yet it is his 
lines which leap to our minds when we think of the 
*^wild surmise" felt by the indomitable explorer-conqueror 
from Spain when the vast new sea burst on his vision. 
When, however, the great historian has spoken, his 

10 work will never be undone. No poet can ever supersede 
what Napier° wrote of the storming of Badajoz, of the 
British infantry at Albuera, and of the light artillery 
at Fuentes d'Oiioro. After Parkman° had written of 
Montcalm" and Wolfe° there was left for other writers 

IS only what Fitzgerald" left for other translators of Omar 
Khayyam. Much new light has been thrown on the 
history of the Byzantine Empire by the many men who 
have studied it of recent years; we read each new writer 
with pleasure and profit; and after reading each we take 

20 down a volume of Gibbon," with renewed thankfulness 
that a great writer was moved to do a great task. 

The greatest of future archaeologists will be the great 
historian who instead of being a mere 'antiquarian delver 
in dust heaps has the genius to reconstruct for us the 

25 immense panorama of the past. He must possess knowl- 
edge. He must possess that without which knowledge 
is of so little use, wisdom. What he brings from the 
charnel-house he must use with such potent wizardry that 
we shall see the life that was and not the death that is. 

30 For remember that the past was life just as much as the 
present is life. Whether it be Egypt, or Mesopotamia, 
or Scandinavia with which he deals, the great historian, if 



THE HISTORIAN OF THE FUTURE 123 

the facts permit him, will put before us the men and women 
as they actually hved so that we shall recognize them 
for what they were, li\4ng beings. Men like Maspero°, 
Breasted,^ and Weigair have already begun this work for 
the countries of the Nile and the Euphrates. For Scan- 5 
dinavia the groundwork was laid long ago in the Heim- 
skringla° and in such sagas° as those of Burnt Njal and Gisli 
Soursop. Minute descriptions of mummies and of the 
furniture of tombs help us as little to understand the Egypt 
of the mighty da^^s, as to sit inside the tomb of Mount lo 
Vernon° would help us to see Washington the soldier 
leading to battle his scarred and tattered veterans, or 
Washington the statesman, by his serene strength of 
character, rendering it possible for his countrymen to 
estabhsh themselves as one great nation. 15 

The great historian must be able to paint for us the 
life of the plain people, the ordinary men and women, 
of the time of which he writes. He can do this only if 
he possesses the highest kind of imagination. Collections 
of figures no more give us a picture of the past than the 20 
reading of a tariff report on hides or woolens gives us an 
idea of the actual lives of the men and women who Hve 
on ranches or work in factories. The great historian will 
in as full measure as possible present to us the every-day 
hfe of the men and women of the age which he describes. 25 
Nothing that tells of this life will come amiss to him. The 
instruments of their labor and the weapons of their war- 
fare, the wills that they wrote, the bargains that they made, 
and the songs that they sang when they feasted and made 
love; he must use them all. He must tell us of the toil 30 
of the ordinary man in ordinary times, and of the play 
by which that ordinary toil was broken. He must never 



124 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

forget that no event stands out entirely isolated. He 
must trace from its obscure and humble beginnings each 
of the movements that in its hour of triumph has shaken 
the world. 
5 Yet he must not forget that the times that are ex- 
traordinary need especial portrayal. In the revolt against 
the old tendency of historians to deal exclusively with 
the spectacular and the exceptional, to treat only of war 
and oratory and government, many modern writers 
10 have gone to the opposite extreme. They fail to realize 
that in the lives of nations as in the lives of men there 
are hours so fraught with weighty achievement, with 
triumph or defeat, with joy or sorrow, that each such 
hour may determine all the years that are to come there- 
is after, or may outweigh all the years that have gone be- 
fore. In the writings of our historians, as in the lives of 
our ordinary citizens, we can neither afford to forget 
that it is the ordinary every-day life which counts most; 
nor yet that seasons come when ordinary qualities count 
20 for but little in the face of great contending forces of 
good and of evil, the outcome of whose strife determines 
whether the nation shall walk in the glory of the morn- 
ing or in the gloom of spiritual death. 

The historian must deal with the daj^s of common 
25 things, and deal with them so that they shall interest us 
in reading of them as our own common things interest us 
as we live among them. He must trace the changes that 
come almost unseen, the slow and gradual growth that 
transforms for good or for evil the children and grand- 
30 children so that they stand high above or far below the 
level on which their forefathers stood. He must also 
trace the great cataclysms that interrupt and divert this 



THE HISTORIAN OF THE FUTURE 125 

gradual development. He can no more afford to be 
blind to one class of phenomena than to the other. He 
must ever remember that while the worst offense of which . 
he can be guilty is to write vividly and inaccurately, yet 
that unless he writes vividly he cannot write truthfully; 5 
for no amount of dull, painstaking detail will sum up as 
the whole truth unless the genius is there to paint the 
truth. 

There can be no better illustration of what I mean 
than is afforded by the history of Russia during the last lo 
thousand years. The historian must trace the growth 
of the earhest Slav communities of the forest and the 
steppe, the infiltration of Scandinavian invaders who 
gave them their first power of mass action, and the slow, 
chaotic development of the little communes into barbarous 15 
cities and savage princedoms. In later Russian history 
he must show us priest and noble, merchant and serf, 
changing slowly from the days when Ivan the Terrible^ 
warred against Batory, the Magyar king of Poland, until 
the present moment, when with half-suspicious eyes the 20 
people of the Czar watch their remote Bulgarian kinsmen 
standing before the last European stronghold of the 
Turk. During all these centuries there were multitudes 
of wars, foreign and domestic, any or all of which were 
of little moment compared to the slow working of the 25 
various forces that wrought in the times of peace. But 
there was one period of storm and overthrow so terrible 
that it affected profoundly for all time the whole growth of 
the Russian people, in inmost character no less than in 
external dominion. Early in the thirteenth century the 30 
genius of Jenghiz Khan° stirred the Mongol horsemen of 
the mid-Asian pastures to a movement as terrible to 



126 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

civilization as the lava flow of a volcano to the lands 

around the volcano's foot. When that century opened, 

• the Mongols were of no more weight in the world than 

the Touaregs° of the Sahara are to-day. Long before the 

5 century had closed they had ridden from the Yellow 
Sea to the Adriatic and the Persian Gulf. They had 
crushed Christian and Moslem" and Buddhist" ahke 
beneath the iron cruelty of their sway. They had con- 
quered China as their successors conquered India. They 

10 sacked Baghdad, the seat of the Khahf. In mid-Europe 
their presence for a moment caused the same horror to 
faU on the warring adherents of the pope and the 
kaiser. To Europe they were a scourge so frightful, so 
irresistible, that the people cowered before them as if they 

15 had been demons. No European army of that day, of 
any nation, was able to look them in the face on a stricken 
field. Bestial in their lives, irresistible in battle, merciless 
in victory, they trampled the lands over which they rode 
into bloody mire beneath the hoofs of their horses. The 

20 squat, slit-eyed, brawny horse-bowonen drew a red furrow 
across Hungary, devasted Poland, and in Silesia over- 
threw the banded chivalry of Germany. But it was in 
Russia that they did their worst. They not merely con- 
quered Russia, but held the Russians as cowering and 

25 abject serfs for two centuries. Every feeble effort at 
resistance was visited with such bloodtliirsty vengeance 
that finally no Russian ventured ever to oppose them at 
all. But the princes of the cities soon found that the 
beast-like fury of the conquerors when their own desires 

30 were thwarted, was only equalled by their beast-like 
indifference to all that was done among the conquered 
people themselves, and that they were ever ready to hire 



THE HISTORIAN OF THE FUTURE 127 

themselves out to aid each Russian against his brother. 
Under this regime the Russian who rose was the Russian 
who with cringing servility to his Tartar overlords cora- 
bined ferocious and conscienceless greed in the treat- 
ment of his fellow-Russians. Moscow came to the fronts 
by using the Tartar to help conquer the other Russian 
cities, paying as a price abject obedience to all Tartar 
demands. In the long run the fierce and pliant cunning 
of the conquered people proved too much for the short- 
sighted and arrogant brutality of the conquerors. The lo 
Tartar power, the Mongolian power, waned. Russia be- 
came united, threw off the 3^oke, and herself began a 
career of aggression at the expense of her former con- 
querors. But the reconquest of racial independence, 
vitally necessary though it was to Russia, had been paid i5 
for by the establishment of a despotism Asiatic rathar 
than European in its spirit and working. 

The true historian will bring the past before our eyes 
as if it were the present. He will make us see as Uving 
men the hard-faced archers of Agincourt,"^ and the war- 20 
worn spearmen who followed Alexander^ down beyond 
the rim of the known world. We shall hear grate on the 
coast of Britain the keels of the Low-Dutch sea-thieves° 
whose children's children were to inherit unknown conti- 
iients.° We shall thrill to the triumphs of Hannibal.°25 
Gorgeous in our sight will rise the splendor of dead cities, 
and the might of the elder empires of which the very ruins 
crumbled to dust ages ago. Along ancient trade routes, 
across the world's waste spaces, the caravans shall move; 
and the admirals of uncharted seas shall furrow the oceans 30 
with their lonely prows. Beyond the dim centuries we 
shall see the banners float above armed hosts. We shall 



]28 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

see conquerors riding forward to victories that have 
changed the course of time. We shall listen to the 
prophecies of forgotten seers. Ours shall be the dreams 
of dreamers who dreamed greatly, who saw in their vision 
5 peaks so lofty that never yet have they been reached by 
the sons and daughters of men. Dead poets shall sing 
to us the deeds of men of might and the love and the 
beauty of women. We shall see the dancing girls of 
Memphis."" The scent of the flowers in the Hanging 

10 Gardens of Babylon^ will be heavy to our senses. 
We shall sit at feast with the kings of Nineveh® when 
they drink from ivory and gold. With Queen Maeve° 
in her sun parlor we shall watch the nearing chariots of 
the champions. For us the war-horns of King Olaf® 

15 shall wail across the flood, and the harps sound high at 
festivals in forgotten halls. The frowning strongholds 
of the barons of old shall rise before us, and the white 
palace-castles from whose windows Syrian princes once 
looked across the blue ^gean. We shall know the valor 

20 of the two-sworded Samurai.° Ours shall be the hoary 
wisdom and the strange, crooked folly of the imme- 
morial civilizations which tottered to a living death in 
India and in China. We shall see the terrible horsemen 
of Timur the Lame° ride over the roof of the world; we 

25 shall hear the drums beat as the armies of Gustavus° and 
Frederick® and Napoleon® drive forward to victory. Ours 
shall be the woe of burgher and peasant, and ours the 
stern joy when freemen triumph and justice comes to 
her own. The agony of the galley-slaves shall be ours, 

30 and the rejoicing when the wicked are brought low and 
the men of evil days have their reward. We shall see 
the glory of triumphant violence, and the revel of those 



THE HISTORIAN OF THE FUTURE 129 

who do wrong in high places; and the broken-hearted 
despair that Hes beneath the glory and the revel. We 
shall also see the supreme righteousness of the wars for 
freedom and justice, and know that the men who fell in 
these wars made all mankind their debtors. 5 

Some day the historians will tell us of these things. 
Some day, too, they will tell our children of the age and 
the land in which we now live. They will portray the 
conquest of the continent. They will show the slow be- 
ginnings of settlement, the growth of the fishing and trad- lo 
ing towns on the seacoast, the hesitating early ventures 
into the Indian-haunted forest. Then they will show the 
backwoodsmen, with their long rifles and their light axes, 
making their way with labor and peril through the wooded 
wilderness® to the Mississippi; and then the endless march is 
of the white-topped wagon-trains across plain and moun- 
tain to the coast of the greatest of the five great oceans. 
They will show how the land which the pioneers won 
slowly and with incredible hardship was filled in two gen- 
erations by the overflow from the countries of western 20 
and central Europe. The portentous growth of the cities 
will be shown, and the change from a nation of farmers 
to a nation of business men and artisans, and all the far- 
reaching consequences of the rise of the new industrialism. 
The formation of a new ethnic type in this melting-pot 25 
of the nations will be told. The hard materiahsm of our 
age will appear, and also the strange capacity for lofty 
idealism which must be reckoned with by all who would 
understand the American character. A people whose 
heroes are Washington and Lincoln, a peaceful people who 30 
fought to a finish one of the bloodiest of wars, waged solely 
for the sake of a great principle and a noble idea, surely 



130 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

possess an emergency standard far above mere money- 
getting. 

Those who tell the Americans of the future what the 
Americans of to-day and of yesterday have done, will per- 

5 force tell much that is unpleasant. This is but saying 
that they will describe the arch-typical civiHzation of this 
age. Nevertheless when the tale is finally told, I believe 
that it will show that the forces working for good in our 
national life outweigh the forces working for evil, and 

10 that, with many blunders and shortcomings, with much 
halting and turning aside from the path, we shall yet in 
the end prove our faith by our works, and show in our 
lives our belief that righteousness exalteth a nation. 



ADVENTURE 



BEAR HUNTING EXPERIENCES^ 

Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, 
and, as we expected, found that the bear had eaten his 
fill at it during the night. His tracks showed him to be 
an immense fellow, and were so fresh that we doubted if 
he had left long before we arrived; and we made up ours 
minds to follow him up and try to find his lair. The bears 
that lived on these mountains had evidently been little 
disturbed; indeed, the Indians and most of the white hunt- 
ers are rather chary of meddling with ^^Old Ephraim,'^ 
as the mountainmen style the grizzly, unless they get him lo 
at a disadvantage; for the sport is fraught with some dan- 
ger and but small profit. The bears thus seemed to have 
very little fear of harm, and we thought it likely that the 
bed of the one who had fed on the elk would not be far 
away. . is 

My companion was a skilful tracker, and we took up 
the trail at once. For some distance it led over the soft, 
yielding carpet of moss and pine needles, and the foot- 
prints were quite easily made out, although we could fol- 
low them but slowly; for we had, of course, to keep a sharp 20 
lookout ahead and around us as we walked noiselessly on 
in the sombre half-light always prevailing under the great 
pine trees, through whose thickly interlacing branches 
stray but few beams of fight, no matter how bright the sun 
may be outside. We made no sound ourselves, and every 25 
little sudden noise sent a thrill through me as I peered 
about with each sense on the alert. Two or three of the 

^ Reprinted by permission from Hunting Trips of a Ranch- 
maUj copyright by G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

133 



134 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

ravens that we had scared from the carcass flew overhead, 
croaking hoarsely; and the pine tops moaned and sighed 
in the slight breeze — for pine trees seem to be ever in mo- 
tion, no matter how light the wind. 

5 After going a few hundred yards the tracks turned off 
on a well-beaten path made by the elk; the woods were in 
many places cut up by these game-trails, which had often 
become as distinct as ordinary foot-paths. The beast's 
footprints were perfectly plain in the dust, and he had 

10 lumbered along up the path until near the middle of the 
hill-side, where the ground broke away and there were 
hollows and bowlders. Here there had been a windfall, 
and the dead trees lay among the living, piled across one 
another in all directions; while between and around them 

15 sprouted up a thick growth of young spruces and other 
evergreens. The trail turned off into the tangled thicket, 
within which it was almost certain we would find our 
quarry. We could still follow the tracks, by the slight 
scrapes of the claws on the bark or by the bent and broken 

20 twigs, and we advanced with noiseless caution, slowly 
climbing over the dead tree trunks and upturned stumps, 
and not letting a branch rustle or catch on our clothes. 
When in the middle of the thicket we crossed what was 
almost a breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who 

25 was leading, passed by the upright stem of a great pine. 
As soon as he was by it he sank suddenly on one knee, 
turning half round, his face fairly aflame with excitement; 
and as I strode past him, with my rifle at the ready, there, 
not ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from 

30 his bed among the young spruces. He had heard us, but 
apparently hardly knew exactly where or what we were, 
for he reared up on his haunches sideways to us. Then he 



BEAR HUNTING EXPERIENCES 135 

saw US and dropped down again on all-fours, the shaggy 
hair on his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he 
turned toward us. As he sank down on his forefeet I had 
raised the rifle; his head was bent shghtly down, and when I 
saw the top of the white bead fairly between his small, ght- s 
tering, evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half rising up, the huge 
beast fell over on his side in the death-throes, the ball hav- 
ing gone into his brain, striking as fairly between the eyes 
as if the distance had been measured by a carpenter ^s rule. 

The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from the lo 
time I caught sight of the game; indeed, it was over so 
quickly that the grizzly did not have time to show fight 
at all or com.e a step toward us. It was the first I had ever 
seen, and I felt not a httle proud, as I stood over the great 
brindled bulk which lay stretched out at length in the cool is 
shade of the evergreens. He was a monstrous fellow, much 
larger than any I have seen since, whether alive or brought 
in dead by the hunters. As near as we could estimate 
(for of course we had nothing with which to weigh more 
than very small portions), he must have weighed about 20 
twelve hundred pounds, and, though tliis is not as large 
as some of iiis kind are scid to grow in California^ it is 
yet a very unusual size for a bear. He was a good deal 
heavier than any of our horses, and it was with the 
greatest difficulty that we were able to skin him. He 25 
must have been very old, his teeth and claws being 
all worn down and blunted; but nevertheless he had 
been Hving in plenty, for he was as fat as a prize-hog, 
the layers on his back being a finger's length in thickness. 
He was still in the summer coat, his hair being short, 30 
and in color a curious brindled brown, somewhat like that 
of certain bull-dogs^ while all the bears we shot afterward 



136 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

had the long thick winter fur, cinnamon or yellowish brown. 
By the way, the name of this bear has reference to its char- 
acter and not to its color, and should, I suppose, be prop- 
erly spelt grisly° — in the sense of horrible, exactly as we 
5 speak of a '^ grisly spectre^' — and not grizzly; but per- 
haps the latter way of spelling it is too well established 
to be now changed. 

In killing dangerous game, steadiness is more needed 
than good shooting. No game is dangerous unless a man 

10 is close up, for nowadays hardly any wild beast will 
charge from a distance of a hundred yards, but will rather 
tr}^ to run off; and if a man is close it is easy enough for him 
to shoot straight if he does not lose his head. A bear's brain 
is about the size of a pint bottle; and any one can hit a 

15 pint bottle off-hand at thirty or forty feet. I have had 
two shots at bears at close quarters, and each time I 
fired into the brain, the bullet in one case striking fairly 
between the eyes, as told above, and in the other going in 
between the eye and ear. A novice at this kind of sport 

20 will find it best and safest to keep in mind the old Norse 
viking's advice in reference to a long sword: '^If you go 
in close enough your sword will be long enough." If a 
poor shot goes in close enough he will find that he shoots 
straight enough. 

25 I was very proud over my first bear; but Merrifield's chief 
feeling seemed to be disappointment that the animal had 
not had time to show fight. He was rather a reckless 
fellow, and very confident in his own skill with the rifle; and 
he really did not seem to have any more fear of the grizzlies 

30 than if they had been so many jack-rabbits. I did not at 
all share his feelings, having a hearty respect for my foes' 
prowess, and in following and attacking them always took 



BEAR HUNTING EXPERIENCES 137 

all possible care to get the chances on my side. Merrifield 
was sincerely sorry that we never had to stand a regular 
charge; while on this trip we killed five grizzlies with 
seven bullets, and except in the case of the she and cub, 
spoken of further on, each was shot about as quickly ass 
it got sight of us. 

A day or two after the death of the big bear, we went 
out one afternoon on horseback, intending merely to ride 
down to see a great canyon lying some six miles west of 
our camp; indeed, we went more to look at the scenery lo 
than for any other reason, though, of course, neither of 
us ever stirred out of camp without his rifle. We rode 
down the valley in which we had camped, through alter- 
nate pine groves and open glades, until we reached the 
canyon, and then skirted its brink for a mile or so. It was is 
a great chasm, many miles in length, as if the table-land 
had been rent asunder by some terrible and unknown 
force; its sides were sheer walls of rock, rising three or 
four hundred feet straight up in the air, and worn by the 
weather till they looked like the towers and battlements 20 
of some vast fortress. Between them at the bottom was 
a space, in some places nearly a quarter of a mile wide, in 
others very narrow, through whose middle foamed a deep 
rapid torrent of which the sources la}^ far back among the 
snow-topped mountains around Cloud Peak. In this val- 25 
ley, dark-green, sombre pines stood in groups, stiff and 
erect; and here and there among them were groves of 
poplar and cotton-wood, with slender branches and trem- 
bling leaves, their bright green already changing to yellow 
in the sharp fall weather. We went do\vn to where the 30 
mouth of the canyon opened out, and rode our horses 
to the end of a great jutting promontory of rock, thrust 



138 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

out into the plain; and in the eold, clear air we looked far 
over the broad valley of the Big Horn as it lay at our very 
feet, walled in on the other side by the distant chain of 
the Rocky Mountains. 
5 Turning our horses, we rode back along the edge of 
another canyon-like valley, with a brook flowing down its 
centre, and its rocky sides covered with an uninterrupted 
pine forest — the place of all others in whose inaccessible 
wildness and ruggedness a bear would find a safe 

10 retreat. After some time we came to where other valleys, 
with steep, grass-grown sides, covered with sage-brush, 
branched out from it, and we followed one of these out. 
There was plenty of elk sign about, and we saw several 
black-tail deer. These last were very common on the 

15 mountains, but we had not hunted them at all, as we were 
in no need of meat. But this afternoon we came across a 
buck with remarkably fine antlers, and accordingly I shot 
it, and we stopped to cut off and skin out the horns, 
throwing the reins over the heads of the horses and 

20 leaving them to graze by themselves. The body lay near 
the crest of one side of a deep valley, or ravine, which 
headed up on the plateau a mile to our left. Except for 
scattered trees and bushes the valley was bare; but there 
was heavy timber along the crests of the hills on its 

25 opposite side. It took some time to fix the head properly, 
and we were just ending when Merrifield sprang to his feet 
and exclaimed ^^Look at the bears! ^' pointing down into 
the valley below us. Sure enough there were two bears 
(which afterwards proved to be an old she and a nearly 

30 full-grown cub) traveling up the bottom of the valley, 
much too far off for us to shoot. Grasping our rifles and 
throwing off our hats we started off as hard as we could 



BEAR HUNTING EXPERIENCES 139 

run, diagonally down the hill-side, so as to cut them off. 
It was some little time before they saw us, when they 
made off at a lumbering gallop up the valley. It would 
seem impossible to run into two grizzhes in the open, but 
they were going up hill, and we down, and moreover the 5 
old one kept stopping. The cub would forge ahead and 
could probably have escaped us, but the mother now and 
then stopped to sit up on her haunches and look round at 
us, when the cub would run back to her. The upshot 
was that we got ahead of them^ when they turned and lo 
went straight up one hill-side as we ran straight down 
the other behind them. By this time I was pretty 
nearly done out, for running along the steep ground 
through the sage-brush was most exhausting work; and 
Merrifield kept gaining on me and was well in front. Just 15 
as he disappeared over a bank, almost at the bottom of 
the valley, I tripped over a bush and fell full-length. When 
I got up I knew I could never make up the ground I had 
lost, and besides could hardly run any longer; Merrifield 
was out of sight below, and the bears were laboring up 20 
the steep hill-side directly opposite and about three 
hundred yards off, so I sat down and began to shoot over 
Merrifield's head, aiming at the big bear. She was going 
very steadily and in a straight line, and each bullet sent 
up a puff of dust where it struck the dry soil, so that 1 25 
could keep correcting my aim; and the fourth ball crashed 
into the old bear's flank. She lurched heavily forward, but 
recovered herself and reached the timber, while Merrifield, 
who had put on a spurt, was not far behind. 

I toiled up the hill at a sort of trot, fairly gasping and sob- 30 
bing for breath; but before I got to the top I heard a couple 
of shots and a shout. The old bear had turned as soon as 



140 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

she was in the timber, and came toward Merrifield, but he 
gave her the death-wound by firing into her chest, and then 
shot at the young one, knocking it over. When I came 
up he was just walking toward the latter to finish it with 

5 the revolver, but it suddenly jumped up as Hvely as 
ever and made off at a great pace — ^for it was nearly full- 
grown. It was impossible to fire where the tree trunks 
were so thick, but there was a small opening across which 
it would have to pass, and collecting all my energies I 

10 made a last run, got into position, and covered the open- 
ing with my rifle. The instant the bear appeared I fired, 
and it turned a dozen somersaults down-hill, rolling over 
and over; the ball had struck it near the tail and had 
ranged forward through the hollow of the body. Each of 

15 us had thus given the fatal wound to the bear into which 
the other had fired the first bullet. The run, though short, 
had been very sharp, and over such awful country that 
we were completely fagged out, and could hardly speak 
for lack of breath. The sun had already set, and it was 

20 too late to skin the animals; so we merely dressed them, 
caught the ponies — with some trouble, for they were 
frightened at the smell of the bear's blood on our hands — 
and rode home through the darkening woods. Next day 
we brought the teamster and two of the steadiest pack- 

25 horses to the carcasses, and took the skins into camp. 



GETTING CHRISTMAS DINNER ON A RANCH ^ 

One December, while I was out on my ranch, so much 
work had to be done that it was within a week of Christ- 
mas before we were able to take any thought for the 
Christmas dinner. The winter set in late that year, and 
there had been comparatively little cold weather, but 5 
one day the ice on the river had been sufficiently strong 
to enable us to haul up a wagonload of flour, with enough 
salt pork to last through the mnter, and a very few tins 
of canned goods, to be used at special feasts. We had 
some bushels of potatoes, the heroic victors of a struggle lo 
for existence in which the rest of our garden vegetables 
had succumbed to drought, frost, and grasshoppers; and 
we also had some wild plums and dried elk venison. But 
we had no fresh meat, and so one day my foreman and 
I agreed to make a hunt on the morrow. . 15 

Accordingly one of the cowboys rode out in the frosty 
afternoon to fetch in the saddleband from the plateau 
three miles off, where they were grazing. It was after 
sunset when he returned. I was lounging out by the 
corral, my wolf-skin cap drawn down over my ears, and 20 
my hands thrust deep into the pockets of my fur coat, 
gazing across the wintry landscape. Cold red bars in 
the winter sky marked where the sun had gone down be- 
hind a row of jagged, snow-covered buttes. 

Turning to go into the Httle bleak log house, as the 25 
dusk deepened, I saw the horses trotting homeward in 
a long file, their unshod hoofs making no sound in the 

^Reprinted by permission from Everybody's Magazine^ 
vol. ix, page 851. 

141 



142 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

light snow which covered the plain, turning it into a 
glimmering white waste wherein stood dark islands of 
leafless trees, with trunks and branches weirdly dis- 
torted. The cowboy, with bent head, rode behind the 

5 line of horses, sometimes urging them on by the shrill 
cries known to cattlemen; and as they neared the corral 
they broke into a gallop, ran inside, and then halted in 
a mass. The frost lay on their shaggy backs, and Uttle 
icicles hung from their nostrils. 

10 Choosing out two of the strongest and quietest, we 
speedily roped them and led them into the warm log 
stable, where they were given a plentiful supply of the 
short, nutritious buffalo-grass hay, while the rest of the 
herd were turned loose to shift for themselves. Then 

15 we went inside the house to warm our hands in front of 
the great pile of blazing logs, and to wait impatiently 
until the brace of prairie chickens I had shot that after- 
noon should be fixed for supper. Then our rifles and 
cartridge belts were looked to, one of the saddles which 

20 had met with an accident was overhauled, and we were 
ready for bed. 

It was necessary to get to the hunting grounds by 
sunrise, and it still lacked a couple of hours of dawn when 
the foreman wakened me as I lay asleep beneath the 

25 buffalo robes. Dressing hurriedly and breakfasting on 
a cup of coffee and some mouthfuls of bread and jerked 
elk meat, we slipped out to the barn, threw the saddles 
on the horses, and were off. 

The air was bitterly chill; the cold had been severe 

30 for two days, so that the river ice would again bear horses. 
Beneath the hght covering of powdery snow we could 
feel the rough ground like WTinkled iron under the horses' 



GETTING CHRISTMAS DINNER ON A RANCH US 

hoofs. There was no moon, but the stars shone beauti- 
fully down through the cold, clear air, and our willing 
horses galloped swiftly across the long bottom on which 
the ranch-house stood, threading their way deftly among 
the clumps of sprawling sagebush. 5 

A mile off we crossed the river, the ice cracking with 
noises hke pistol shots as our horses picked their way 
gingerly over it. On the opposite side was a dense 
jungle of bullberry bushes, and on breaking through 
this we found ourselves galloping up a long, winding lo 
valley, which led back many miles into the hills. The 
crannies and little side ravines were filled with brush- 
wood and groves of stunted ash. By this time there 
was a faint flush of gray in the east, and as we rode 
silently along we could make out dimly the tracks made 15 
by the wild animals as they had passed and repassed in 
the snow. Several times we dismounted to examine 
them. A couple of coyotes, possibly frightened by our 
approach, had trotted and loped up the valley ahead of 
us, leaving a trail like that of two dogs; the sharper, more 20 
delicate footprints of a fox crossed our path; and out- 
side one long patch of brushwood a series of round im- 
prints in the snow betrayed where a bobcat — as plains- 
men term the small lynx — ^had been lurking around to 
try to pick up a rabbit or a prairie fowl. 25 

As the dawn reddened, and it became light enough to 
see objects some little way off, we began to sit erect in 
our saddles and to scan the hillsides sharply for sight 
of feeding deer. Hitherto we had seen no deer tracks 
save inside the bullberry bushes by the river, and we 30 
knew that the deer that lived in that impenetrable 
jungle were cunning whitetails which in such a place 



144 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

could be hunted only by aid of a hound. But just be- 
fore sunrise we came on three lines of heart-shaped foot- 
marks in the snow, which showed where as many deer 
had just crossed a Httle plain ahead of us. They were 
5 walking leisurely, and from the lay of the land we believed 
that we should find them over the ridge, where there v/as 
a brush coulee. 

Riding to one side of the trail, we topped the little 
ridge just as the sun flamed up, a burning ball of 

10 crimson, beyond the snow}^ waste at our backs. Almost 
immediately afterward my companion leaped from his 
horse and raised his rifle, and as he pulled the trigger I saw 
through the twigs of a brush patch on our left the erect, 
startled head of a young black-tailed doe as she turned 

15 to look at us, her great mule-like ears thrown forward. 
The ball broke her neck, and she turned a complete somer- 
sault downhill, while a sudden smashing of underbrush 
told of the flight of her terrified companions. 

We both laughed and called out ^^ dinner ^^ as we sprang 

20 down toward her, and in a few minutes she was dressed 
and hung up by the hind legs on a small ash tree. The 
entrails and viscera we threw off to one side, after care- 
fully poisoning them from a little bottle of strychnine 
which I had in my pocket. Almost every cattleman 

25 carries poison and neglects no chance of leaving out wolf 
bait, for the wolves are sources of serious loss to the un- 
fenced and unhoused flocks and herds. In this instance 
we felt particularly revengeful because it was but a few 
days since we had lost a fine yearling heifer. The tracks 

30 on the hillside where the carcass lay when we found it, 
told the story plainly. The wolves, two in number, had 
crept up close before being discovered, and had then raced 



GETTING CHRISTMAS DINNER ON A RANCH 145 

down on the astounded heifer almost before she could 
get fairly started. One brute had hamstringed her with 
a snap of his vise-like jaws, and once down, she was torn 
open in a twinkling. 

No sooner was the sun up than a warm west winds 
began to blow in our faces. The weather had sud- 
denly changed, and within an hour the snow was be- 
ginning to thaw and to leave patches of bare ground on 
the hillsides. We left out coats with our horses and 
struck off on foot for a group of high buttes cut up by lo 
the cedar canyons and gorges, in which we knew the old 
bucks loved to lie. It was noon before we saw anything 
more. We lunched at a clear spring — ^not needing much 
time, for all we had to do was to drink a draught of icy 
water and munch a strip of dried venison. Shortly after- is 
ward, as we were moving along a hillside with silent 
caution, we came to a sheer canyon of which the opposite 
face was broken by little ledges grown up with wind- 
beaten cedars. As we peeped over the edge, my companion 
touched my arm and pointed silently to one of the ledges, 20 
and instantly I caught the glint of a buck's horns as he 
lay half behind an old tree trunk. A slight shift of 
position gave me a fair shot slanting down between his 
shoulders, and though he struggled to his feet, he did not 
go fifty yards after receiving the bullet. 2S 

This was all we could carry. Leading the horses around, 
we packed the buck behind my companion's saddle, and 
then rode back for the doe, which I put behind mine. But 
we were not destined to reach home without a slight 
adventure. When we got to the river we rode boldly on 30 
the ice, heedless of the thaw; and about midway there 
was a sudden, tremendous crash, and men, horses, and 



146 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

deer were scrambling together in the water amid slabs 
of floating ice. However, it was shallow, and no worse 
results followed than some hard work and a chilly bath. 
But what cared we? We were returning triumphant with 
5 our Christmas dinner. 



CITIZENSHIP 



TRUE AMERICANISM 1 

Patriotism was once defined as ^Hhe last refuge of a 
scoundrel;^' and somebody has recently remarked that 
when Dr. Johnson^ gave this definition he was ignorant 
of the infinite possibilities contained in the word ^'reform/' 
Of course both gibes were quite justifiable, in so far ass 
they were aimed at people who use noble names to cloak 
base purposes. Equally of course the man shows little 
wisdom and a low sense of duty who fails to see that love 
of country is one of the elemental virtues, even though 
scoundrels play upon it for their own selfish ends; and, lo 
inasmuch as abuses continually grow up in civic Ufe as 
in all other kinds of life, the statesman is indeed a weak- 
ling who hesitates to reform these abuses because the word 
^' reform ^^ is often on the lips of men who are silly or dis- 
honest. 15 

What is true of patriotism and reform is true also of 
Americanism. There are plenty of scoundrels alwaj^s 
ready to try to belittle reform movements or to bolster 
up existing iniquities in the name of Americanism; but 
this does not alter the fact that the man who can do most 20 
in this country is and must be the man whose Americanism 
is most sincere and intense. Outrageous though it is to 
use a noble idea as the cloak for evil, it is still worse to 
assail the noble idea itself because it can thus be used. 
The men who do iniquity in the name of patriotism, of 25 
reform, of Americanism, are merely one small division 
of the class that has always existed and will always exist, — 

1 Reprinted by permission from American Ideals and Other 
Essays J copyright by G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

149 



150 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

the class of hypocrites and demagogues, the class that is 
always prompt to steal the watchwords of righteousness 
and use them in the interests of evil-doing. 

The stoutest and truest Americans are the very men 
5 who have the least sympathy with the people who invoke 
the spirit of Americanism to aid what is vicious in our 
government, or to throw obstacles in the way of those who 
strive to reform it. It is contemptible to oppose a move- 
ment for good because that movement has already suc- 

loceeded somewhere else, or to champion an existing abuse 
because our people have always been wedded to it. To 
appeal to national prejudice against a given reform move- 
ment is in every way unworthy and silly. It is as childish 
to denounce free trade because England has adopted it 

15 as to advocate it for the same reason. It is eminently 
proper, in dealing with the tariff, to consider the effect of 
tariff legislation in time past upon other nations as will 
as the effect upon our own; but in drawing conclusions it 
is in the last degree foolish to try to excite prejudice against 

20 one system because it is in vogue in some given country, or 
to try to excite prejudice in its favor because the econo- 
mists of that country have found that it was suited to their 
own peculiar needs. In attempting to solve our difficult 
problem of municipal government it is mere folly to refuse 

25 to profit by whatever is good in the examples of Man- 
chester° and Berlin because these cities are foreign, ex- 
actly as it is mere folly blindly to copy their examples 
without reference to our own totally different conditions. 
As for the absurdity of declaimimg against civil-service 

30 reform, for instance, as ^'Chinese," because written ex- 
aminations have been used in China, it would be quite as 
wise to declaim against gunpowder because it was first 



TRUE AMERICANISM 151 

utilized by the same people. In short, the man who, 
whether from mere dull fatuity or from an active interest 
in misgovernment, tries to appeal to American prejudice 
against things foreign, so as to induce Americans to op- 
pose any measure for good, should be looked on by hiss 
fellow-countrymen with the heartiest contempt. So much 
for the men who appeal to the spirit of Americanism to 
sustain us in wrong-doing. But we must never let our 
contempt for these men blind us to the nobility of the 
idea which they strive to degrade. lo 

We Americans have many grave problems to solve, 
many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, 
if,, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the 
strength, the courage, and the virtue to do them. But we 
must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender is 
ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid 
and ignoble pessimism. Our nation is that one among 
all the nations of the earth which holds in its hands 
the fate of the coming years. We enjoy exceptional 
advantages, and are menaced by exceptional dangers; 20 
and all signs indicate that we shall either fail greatly 
or succeed greatly. I firmly believe that we shall suc- 
ceed; but we must not foolishly bhnk the dangers by 
which we are threatened, for that is the way to fail. On 
the contrary, we must soberly set to work to find out alias 
we can about the existence and extent of every evil, must 
acknowledge it to be such, and must then attack it with 
unyielding resolution. There are many such evils, and 
each must be fought after a separate fashion; yet there is 
one quality which we must bring to the solution of every 30 
problem, — that is, an intense and fervid Americanism. 
We shall never be successful over the dangers that con- 



152 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

front us; we shall never achieve true greatness, nor reach 
the lofty ideal which the founders and preservers of our 
mighty Federal Repubhc have set before us, unless we 
are Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and purpose, 
5 keenly alive to the responsibility implied in the very name 
of American, and proud beyond measure of the glorious 
privilege of bearing it. 

There are two or three sides to the question of Ameri- 
canism, and two or three senses in which the word 

10*^ Americanism^^ can be used to express the antithesis of 
what is unwholesome and undesirable. In the first place we 
wish to be broadly American and national, as opposed to 
being local or sectional. We do not wish, in poHtics, in 
literature, or in art, to develop that unwholesome parochial 

IS spirit, that over-exaltation of the little community at the 
expense of the great nation, which produces what has been 
described as the patriotism of the village, the patriotism 
of the belfry. Politically, the indulgence of this spirit was 
the chief cause of the calamities which befell the ancient 

20 republics of Greece,° the mediseval repubhcs of Italy,° 
and the petty States of Germany^ as it was in the last 
century. It is this spirit of provincial patriotism, this 
inabiUty to take a view of broad adhesion to the whole 
nation that has been the chief among the causes that have 

25 produced such anarchy in the South American States, 
and which have resulted in presenting to us, not one great 
Spanish-American federal nation stretching from the 
Rio Grande to Cape Horn, but a squabbhng multitude 
of revolution-ridden States, not one of which stands even 

30 in the second rank as a power. However, politically this 
question of American nationality has been settled once 
for all. We are no longer in danger of repeating in our 



TRUE AMERICANISM 153 

history the shameful and contemptible disasters that have 
befallen the Spanish possessions on this continent since 
they threw off the yoke of Spain. Indeed there is, all 
through our hfe, very much less of this parochial spirit than , 
there was formerly. Still there is an occasional outcrop- 5 
ping here and there; and it is just as well that we should 
keep steadily in mind the futility of talking of a Northern 
Uterature or a Southern Uterature, an Eastern or a West- 
ern school of art or science. The ^^Sewanee Review^' and 
the ^'Overland Monthly/' like the ^^ Century '^ and the lo 
^'Atlantic/' do good work, not merely for one section of 
the country, but for American literature as a whole. Their 
success really means as much for Americans who happen to 
hve in New York or Boston as for Americans who happen 
to Uve in the Gulf States or on the Pacific slope. Joel is 
Chandler Harris° is emphatically a national ^vriter; so is 
Mark Twain.^ They do not write merely for Georgia or 
Missouri, any more than for IlHnois or Connecticut; they 
write as Americans and for all people who can read Eng- 
lish. It is of very great consequence that we should have 20 
a full and ripe hterary development in the United States, 
but it is not of the least consequence whether New York, 
or Boston, or Chicago, or San Francisco becomes the ht- 
erary centre of the United States. 



There is a second side to this question of a broad Amer- 25 
icanism, however. The patriotism of the village or the 
belfry is bad, but the lack of all patriotism is even worse. 
There are philosophers who assure us that, in the future, 
patriotism will be regarded not as a virtue at all, but 
merely as a mental stage in the journey toward a state so 
of feeling when our patriotism will include the whole 
human race and all the world. This may be so; but the 



154 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

age of which these philosophers speak is still several aeons 
distant. In fact, philosophers of this type are so very 
advanced that they are of no practical service to the pres- 
ent generation. It may be that in ages so remote that we 
5 cannot now understand any of the feehngs of those who 
will dwell in them, patriotism will no longer be regarded as 
a virtue, exactly as it may be that in those remote ages 
people will look down upon and disregard monogamic 
marriage; but as things now are and have been for two 

10 or three thousand years past, and are likely to be for two 
or three thousand years to come, the words '^home '^ and 
^' country'^ mean a great deal. Nor do they show any 
tendency to lose their significance. At present, treason, 
like adultery, ranks as one of the worst of all possible 

15 crimes. 

One may fall very far short of treason and yet be an 
undesirable citizen in the community. The man who 
becomes Europeanized, who loses his power of doing 
good work on this side of the water, and who loses his 

20 love for his native land, is not a traitor; but he is a siUy 
and undesirable citizen. He is as emphatically a noxious 
element in our body politic as is the man who comes here 
from abroad and remains a foreigner. Nothing will more 
quickly or more surely disqualify a man from doing good 

25 work in the world than the acquirement of that flaccid 

habit of mind which its possessors style cosmopoHtanism. 

It is not only necessary to Americanize the immigrants 

of foreign birth who settle among us, but it is even more 

necessary for those among us who are by birth and descent 

30 already Americans not to throw away our birthright, and, 
with incredible and contemptible folly, wander back to 
bow down before the alien gods whom our forefathers 



TRUE AMERICANISM 155 

forsook. It is hard to believe that there is any necessity 
to warn Americans that, when they seek to model them- 
selves on the lines of other civilizations, they make them- 
selves the butts of all right-thinking men; and yet the 
necessity certainly exists to give this warning to many of 5 
our citizens who pride themselves on their standing in the 
world of art and letters, or, perchance, on what they 
would style their social leadership in the community. It 
is always better to be an original than an imitation, even 
when the imitation is of something better than the original; lo 
but what shall we say of the fool who is content to be an 
imitation of something worse? Even if the weaklings 
who seek to be other than Americans were right in deem- 
ing other nations to be better than their own, the fact 
yet remains that to be a first-class American is fifty-fold 15 
better than to be a second-class imitation of a Frenchman 
or Englishman. As a matter of fact, however, those of 
our countrymen who do believe in American inferiority 
are always individuals who, however cultivated, have 
some organic weakness in their moral or mental make-up; 20 
and the great mass of our people, who are robustly patri- 
otic, and who have sound, healthy minds, are justified in 
regarding these feeble renegades with a half-impatient 
and half-amused scorn. 

We believe in waging relentless war on rank-growing 25 
evils of all kinds, and it makes no difference to us if they 
happen to be of purely native growth. We grasp at any 
good, no matter whence it comes. We do not accept the 
evil attendant upon another system of government as an 
adequate excuse for that attendant upon our own; the 30 
fact that the courtier is a scamp does not render the dema- 
gogue any the less a scoundrel. But it remains true that, 



156 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

in spite of all our faults and shortcomings, no other land 
offers such glorious possibilities to the man able to take 
advantage of them, as does ours; it remains true that 
no one of our people can do any work really worth doing 
5 unless he does it primarily as an American. It is because 
certain classes of our people still retain their spirit of 
colonial dependence on, and exaggerated deference to, 
European opinion, that they fail to accomplish what they 
ought to. It is precisely along the lines where we have 

10 worked most independently that we have accomplished the 
greatest results; and it is in those professions where there 
has been no servility to, but merely a wise profiting by, 
foreign experience, that we have produced our greatest 
men. Our soldiers and statesmen and orators; our explor- 

isers, our wilderness-winners and commonwealth-builders; 
the men who have made our laws and seen that they were 
executed; and the other men whose energy and ingenuity 
have created our marvellous material prosperity, — all 
these have been men who have drawn wisdom from the 

20 experience of every age and nation, but who have never- 
theless thought, and worked, and conquered, and lived, 
and died, purely as Americans; and on the whole they 
have done better work than has been done in any other 
country during the short period of our national Hfe. 

25 On the other hand, it is in those professions where our 
people have striven hardest to mould themselves in con- 
ventional European forms that they have suceeded least; 
and this holds true to the present day, the failure being of 
course most conspicuous where the man takes up his abode 

30 in Europe; where he becomes a second-rate European, 
because he is over-civilized, over-sensitive, over-refined, 
and has lost the hardihood and manly courage by which 



TRUE AMERICANISM 157 

alone he can conquer in the keen struggle of our national 
life. Be it remembered, too, that this same being does 
not really become a European; he only ceases being an 
American, and becomes nothing. He throws away a 
great prize for the sake of a lesser one, and does not even 5 
get the lesser one. The painter who goes to Paris, not 
merely to get two or three years ^ thorough training in 
his art, but with the deliberate purpose of taking up his 
abode there, and with the intention of following in the 
ruts worn deep by ten thousand earlier travellers, in- lo 
stead of striking off to rise or fall on a new line, thereby 
forfeits all chance of doing the best work. He must con- 
tent himself with aiming at that kind of mediocrity which 
consists in doing fairly well what has already been done 
better; and he usually never even sees the grandeur and i5 
picturesqueness lying open before the eyes of every man 
who can read the book of Americans past and the book of 
Americans present. Thus it is with the undersized man 
of letters, who flees his country because he, with his deh- 
cate, effeminate sensitiveness, finds the conditions of 20 
life on this side of the water crude and raw; in other words, 
because he finds that he cannot play a man^s part among 
men, and so goes where he will be sheltered from the winds 
that harden stouter souls. This emigre may write grace- 
ful and pretty verses, essays, novels ; but he will never do 25 
work to compare with that of his brother, who is strong 
enough to stand on his own feet, and do his work as an 
American. Thus it is with the scientist who spends 
his youth in a German university, and can thenceforth 
work only in the fields already fifty times furrowed by 30 
the German ploughs. Thus it is with that most foolish of 
parents who sends his children to be educated abroad, not 



158 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

knowing — what every clear-sighted man from Washington 
and Jay down has known — that the American who is to 
make his way in America should be brought up among his 
fellow Americans. It is among the people who like to 
5 consider themselves, and, indeed, to a large extent are, the 
leaders of the so-called social world, especially in some of 
the northeastern cities, that this colonial habit of thought, 
this thoroughly provincial spirit of admiration for things 
foreign, and inability to stand on one's own feet, becomes 

10 most evident and most despicable. We thoroughly be- 
lieve in every kind of honest and lawful pleasure, so long 
as the getting it is not made man's chief business; and we 
beheve heartily in the good that can be done by men of 
leisure who work hard in their leisure, whether at politics 

15 or philanthropy, literature or art. But a leisure class 
whose leisure simply means idleness is a curse to the com- 
munity, and in so far as its members distinguish them- 
selves chiefly by aping the worst — not the best — traits of 
similar people across the water, they become both comic 

20 and noxious elements of the body politic. 

"The third sense in which the word '^ Americanism" may 
be employed is with reference to the Americanizing of the 
newcomers to our shores. We must Americanize them in 
every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and 

25 in their way of looking at the relations between Church and 
State. We welcome the German or the Irishman who be- 
comes an American. We have no use for the German or 
Irishman who remains such. We do not wish German- 
Americans and Irish- Americans who figure as such in our 

30 social and political life; we want only Americans, and, pro- 
vided they are such, we do not care whether they are of na- 
tive or of Irish or of German ancestry. We have no room in 



TRUE AMERICANISM 159 

any healthy American community for a German- American 
vote or an Irish-American vote, and it is contemptible 
demagogy to put planks into any party platform with the 
purpose of catching such a vote. We have no room for 
any people who do not act and vote simply as Americans, 5 
and as nothing else. Moreover, we have as little use for 
people who carry religious prejudices into our politics as 
for those who carry prejudices of caste or nationality. We 
stand unalterably in favor of the public-school system in 
its entirety. We believe that the English, and no other lo 
language, is that in which all the school exercises should be 
conducted. We are against any division of the school 
fund, and against any appropriation of public money for 
sectarian purposes. We are against any recognition 
whatever by the State in any shape or form of State- is 
aided parochial schools. But we are equally opposed to 
any discrimination against or for a man because of his 
creed. We demand that all citizens, Protestant and 
Catholic, Jew and Gentile, shall have fair treatment in 
every way; that all alike shall have their rights guaranteed 20 
them. The very reasons that make us unqualified in our 
opposition to State-aided sectarian schools make us equally 
bent that, in the management of our public schools, the 
adherents of each creed shall be given exact and equal 
justice, wholly without regard to their religious affihations; 25 
that trustees, superintendents, teachers, scholars, all alike, 
shall be treated without any reference whatsoever to the 
creed they profess. We maintain that it is an outrage, in 
voting for a man for any position, whether State or national, 
to take into account his religious faith, provided only he 30 
is a good American. When a secret society does what in 
some places the American Protective Association seems 



160 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

to have done, and tries to proscribe Catholics both 
poUtically and socially, the members of such society show 
that they themselves are as utterly un-American, as alien 
to our school of political thought, as the worst immigrants 

5 who land on our shores. This conduct is equally base and 
contemptible; they are the worst foes of our pubUc-school 
system, because they strengthen the hands of its ultra- 
montane enemies; they should receive the hearty con- 
demnation of all Americans who are truly patriotic. 

10 The mighty tide of immigration to our shores has 
brought in its train much of good and much of evil; and 
whether the good or the evil shall predominate depends 
mainly on whether these newcomers do or do not throw 
themselves heartily into our national life, cease to be 

15 European, and become Americans like the rest of us. 
More than a third of the people of the Northern States 
are of foreign birth or parentage. An immense number 
of them have become completely Americanized, and 
these stand on exactly the same plane as the descend- 

20 ants of any Puritan, Cavalier, or Knickerbocker among 
us, and do their full and honorable share of the 
nation's work. But where immigrants, or the sons of 
immigrants, do not heartily and in good faith throw in 
their lot with us, but cling to the speech, the customs, 

25 the ways of life, and the habits of thought of the Old 
World which they have left, they thereby harm both them- 
selves and us . If they remain alien elements , unassimilated , 
and with interests separate from ours, they are mere ob- 
structions to the current of our national life, and, more- 

30 over, can get no good from it themselves. In fact, though 
we ourselves also suffer from their perversity, it is they 
who really suffer most. It is an immense benefit to the 



TRUE AMERICANISM 161 

European immigrant to change him into an American 
citizen. To bear the name of American is to bear the 
most honorable of titles; and whoever does not so be- 
lieve has no business to bear the name at all, and, if he 
comes from Europe, the sooner he goes back there the 5 
better. Besides, the man who does not become American- 
ized nevertheless fails to remain a European and be- 
comes nothing at all. The immigrant cannot possibly 
remain what he was, or continue to be a member of the Old 
World society. If he tries to retain his old language, in lo 
a few generations it becomes a barbarous jargon; if he 
tries to retain his old customs and ways of Ufe, in a few 
generations he becomes an uncouth boor. He has cut 
himself off from the Old World, and cannot retain his 
connection with it; and if he wishes ever to amount to 15 
anything he must throw himself heart and soul, and 
without reservation, into the new life to which he has 
come. 

So, from his own standpoint, it is beyond all question 
the wise thing for the immigrant to become thoroughly 20 
Americanized. Moreover, from our standpoint, we have 
a right to demand it. We freely extend the hand of 
welcome and of good-fellowship to every man, no matter 
what his creed or birthplace, who comes here honestly 
intent on becoming a good United States citizen like the 25 
rest of us; but we have a right, and it is our duty, to 
demand that he shall indeed become so, and shall not 
confuse the issues with which we are struggling by in- 
troducing among us Old-World quarrels and prejudices. 
There are certain ideas which he must give up. For in- 30 
stance, he must learn that American life is incompatible 
with the existence of any form of anarchy, or, indeed. 



162 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

of any secret society having murder for its aim, whether 
at home or abroad; and he must learn that we exact 
full religious toleration and the complete separation of 
Church and State. Moreover, he must not bring in his 

5 Old World race and national antipathies, but must 
merge them into love for our common country, and 
must take pride in the things which we can all take 
pride in. He must revere only our flag; not only must 
it come first, but no other flag should even come second. 

10 He must learn to celebrate Washington's birthday rather 
than that of the Queen or Kaiser, and the Fourth of 
July instead of St. Patrick's Day. Our political and 
social questions must be settled on their own merits, and 
not complicated by quarrels between England and Ireland, 

15 or France and Germany, with which we have nothing to 
do: it is an outrage to fight an American political cam- 
paign with reference to questions of European politics. 
Above all, the immigrant must learn to talk and think 
and he United States. 

20 The immigrant of to-day can learn much from the 
experience of the immigrants of the past, who came to 
America prior to the Revolutionary War. Many of our 
most illustrious Revolutionary names were borne by men 
of Huguenot blood — Jay,° Sevier,° Marion,^ Laurens. ° 

25 But the Huguenots were, on the whole, the best immi- 
grants we have ever received; sooner than any other, and 
more completely, they became American in speech, con- 
viction, and thought. The Hollanders took longer than 
the Huguenots to become completely assimilated; never- 

sotheless they in the end became so, immensely to their 
own advantage. One of the leading Revolutionary gen- 
erals, Schuyler,° and one of the Presidents of the United 



TRUE AMERICANISM ^ 163 

States, Van Buren,° were of Dutch blood; but they rose 
to their positions, the highest in the land, because they 
had become Americans and had ceased being Hollanders. 
If the}^ had remained members of an alien body, cut off 
by their speech and customs and belief from the rest of 5 
the American community, Schuyler would have lived his 
life as a boorish, provincial squire, and Van Buren would 
have ended his days a small tavern-keeper. So it is with 
the Germans of Pennsjdvania. Those of them who be- 
came Americanized have furnished to our history a mul- lo 
titude of honorable names, from the days of the Allihlen- 
bergs° onward; but those who did not become Americanized 
form to the present day an unimportant body, of no 
significance in American existence. So it is with the 
Irish, who gave to Revolutionary annals such names as 15 
Carrol° and Sullivan, ° and to the Ci\dl War men like 
Sheridan° and Shields, ° — all men who were Americans 
and nothing else: while the Irish who remain such, and 
busy themselves solely with alien politics, can have only 
an unhealthy influence upon American hfe, and can 20 
never rise as do their compatriots who become straight- 
out Americans. Thus it has ever been ^vith all people 
who have come hither, of whatever stock or blood. 

But I wish to be distinctly understood on one point. 
Americanism is a question of spirit, convictions, and pur- 25 
pose, not of creed or birthplace. The politician who bids 
for the Irish or German vote, or the Irishman or German 
who votes as an Irishman or German, is despicable, for 
all citizens of this commonwealth should vote solely as 
Americans; but he is not a whit less despicable than the 30 
voter who votes against a good American, merely be- 
cause that American happens to have been born in Ire- 



164 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

land or Germany. Know-nothingism, in any form, is 
as utterly un-American as foreignism. It is a base out- 
rage to oppose a man because of his religion or birth- 
place, and all good citizens will hold any such effort in 
5 abhorrence. A Scandinavian, a German, or an Irish- 
man who has really become an American has the right 
to stand on exactly the same footing as any native-born 
citizen in the land, and is just as much entitled to 
the friendship and support, social and political, of his 

10 neighbors. Among the men with whom I have been 
thrown in close personal contact socially, and who have 
been among my staun chest friends and alhes politically, 
are not a few Americans who happen to have been born 
on the other side of the w^ater, in Germany, Ireland, 

15 Scandinavia; and I know no better men in the ranks of 
our native-born citizens. 

In closing, I cannot better express the ideal attitude 
that should be taken by our fellow-citizens of foreign 
birth than by quoting the words of a representative 

20 American, born in Germany, the Honorable Richard 
Guenther, of Wisconsin. In a speech spoken at the time 
of the Samoan trouble, ° he said: 

" We know as well as any other class of American citizens 
where our duties belong. We will work for our country 

25 in time of peace and fight for it in time of war, if a time 
of war should ever come. When I say our country, I 
mean, of course, our adopted country. I mean the United 
States of America. After passing through the crucible 
of naturahzation, we are no longer Germans; we are 

30 Americans. Our attachment to America cannot be 
measured by the length of our residence here. We are 
Americans from the moment we touch the American 



TRUE AMERICANISM • 165 

shore until we are laid in American graves. We will 
fight for America whenever necessary. America, first, 
last, and all the time. America against Germany, America 
against the world; America, right or wrong; always 
America. We are Americans. " 5 

All honor to the man who spoke such words as those; 
and I believe they express the feelings of the great majority 
of those among our fellow-American citizens who were 
born abroad. We Americans can only do our allotted 
task well if we face it steadily and bravely, seeing but lo 
not fearing the dangers. Above all we must stand shoul- 
der to shoulder, not asking as to the ancestry or creed 
of our comrades, but only demanding that they be in 
very truth Americans, and that we all work together, 
heart, hand, and head, for the honor and the greatness 15 
of our common country. 



THE STRENUOUS LIFE ^ 

Gentlemen: — In speaking to you, men of the greatest 
city of the West, men of the State which gave to the coun- 
try Lincoln and Grant, men who preeminently and dis- 
tinctly embody all that is most American in the Ameri- 

5 can character, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble 
ease but the doctrine of the strenuous life; the life of toil 
and effort; of labor and strife; to preach that highest 
form of success which comes not to the man who desires 
mere easy peace but to the man who does not shrink from 

10 danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of 
these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. 

A hfe of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which springs 
merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive 
after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an 

15 individual. I ask only that what every self-respecting 
American demands from himself, and from his sons, shall 
be demanded of the American nation as a whole. Who 
among you would teach your boys that ease, that peace is 
to be the first consideration in your eyes — to be the ulti- 

20 mate goal after which they strive? You men of Chicago 
have made this city great, you men of Ilhnois have done 
your share, and more than your share, in making America 
great, because you neither preach nor practice such a doc- 
trine. You work yourselves, and you bring up your sons 

25 to work. If you are rich, and are worth your salt, you 
will teach your sons that though they may have leisure, 
it is not to be spent in idleness; for wisely used leisure 

^ Reprinted by permission from The Streniious Life, copy- 
righted by The Century Company. 

166 



THE STRENUOUS LIFE 167 

merely means that those who possess it, being free from 
the necessity of working for their Hvehhood, are all the 
more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative 
work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in his- 
torical research — work of the type we most need in this 5 
country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most 
honor upon the nation. 

We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire 
the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who 
never wrongs his neighbor; who is prompt to help a lo 
friend; but who has those virile qualities necessary to win 
in the stern strife of actual hfe. It is hard to fail; but it 
is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we 
get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the 
present, merely means that there has been stored up is 
effort in the past. A man can be freed from the necessity 
of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him 
have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus pur- 
chased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, 
though of a different kind, whether as a writer or a general, 20 
whether in the field of politics or in the field of explora- 
tion and adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune. 
But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of 
actual labor as a period not of preparation but of mere 
enjoyment, he shows that he is simply a cumberer on the 25 
earth^s surface; and he surely unfits himself to hold his 
own with his fellows if the need to do so should again 
arise. A mere life of ease is not in the end a satisfactory 
life, and above all it is a hfe which ultimately unfits those 
who follow it for serious work in the world. 30 

As it is with the individual so it is with the nation. It 
is a base untruth to sa}^ that happy is the nation that has 



168 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glori- 
ous history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win 
glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than 
to take ranl<: with those poor spirits who neither enjoy 
5 much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twi- 
hght that knows neither victory nor defeat. If in 1861 
the men who loved the Union had believed that peace 
was the end of all things and war and strife a worst of all 
things, and had acted up to their belief, we would have 

10 saved hundreds of thousands of hves, we would have saved 
hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, besides saving 
all the blood and treasure we then lavished, we would 
have prevented the heart-break of many women, the dis- 
solution of many homes; and we would have spared the 

15 country those months of gloom and shame when it seemed 
as if our armies marched only to defeat. We could have 
avoided all this suffering simply by shrinking from strife. 
And if we had thus avoided it we would have shown that 
we were weaklings and that we were unfit to stand among 

20 the great nations of the earth. Thank God for the iron 
in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wis- 
dom of Lincoln and bore sword or rifle in the armies of 
Grant! Let us, the children of the men who proved 
themselves equal to the mighty days — let us, the children 

25 of the men who carried the great Civil War to a trium- 
phant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the 
ignoble counsels of peace were rejected, that the suffering 
and loss, the blackness of sorrow and despair, were un- 
flinchingly faced and the years of strife endured; for in 

30 the end the slave was freed, the Union restored, and the 
mighty American Republic placed once more as a hel- 
meted queen among nations. 



THE STRENUOUS LIFE 169 

We of this generation do not have to face a task such 
as that our fathers faced, but we have our tasks, and woe 
to us if we fail to perform them! We cannot, if we would, 
play the part of China, and be content to rot by inches 
in ignoble ease within our borders, taking no interest ins 
what goes on beyond them; sunk in a scrambhng com- 
merciahsm; heedless of the higher life, the life of aspira- 
tion, of toil and risk; busying ourselves only with the 
wants of our bodies for the day; until suddenly we should 
find, beyond a shadow of question, what China has already lo 
found, that in this world the nation that has trained itself 
to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound in the 
end to go down before other nations which have not lost 
the manly and adventurous qualities. If we are to be a 
really great people, we must strive in good faith to play is 
a great part in the* world. We cannot avoid meeting 
great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is 
whether we shall meet them well or ill. Last year we 
could not help being brought face to face with the prob- 
lem of war with Spain. All we could decide was whether 20 
we should shrink like cowards from the contest or enter 
into it as beseemed a brave and high-spirited people; and, 
once in, whether failure or success should crown our ban- 
ners. So it is now. We cannot avoid the responsibilities 
that confront us in Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the 25 
PhiHppines. All we can decide is whether we shall meet 
them in a way that will redound to the national credit, or 
whether we shall make of our dealings with these new 
problems a dark and shameful page in our history. To 
refuse to deal with them at all merely amounts to dealing 30 
wdth them badly. We have a given problem to solve. If 
"we undertake the solution there is, of course, always dan- 



170 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

ger that we may not solve it aright, but to refuse to under- 
take the solution simply renders it certain that we cannot 
possibly solve it aright. 

The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts 
5 his country, the overcivilized man, who has lost the great 
fighting, masterful virtues, the ignorant man and the man 
of dull mind, whose soul is incapable of feeling the mighty 
lift that thrills ^^ stern men with empires in their brains'' — 
all these, of course, shrink from seeing the nation under- 

10 take its new duties; shrink from seeing us build a navy and 
army adequate to our needs; shrink from seeing us do 
our share of the world's work by bringing order out of 
chaos in the great, fair tropic islands from which the valor 
of our soldiers and sailors has driven the Spanish flag. 

15 These are the men who fear the strenuous life, who fear 
the only national life which is really worth leading. They 
believe in that cloistered life which saps the hardy virtues 
in a nation, as it saps them in the individual; or else they 
are wedded to that base spirit of gain and greed which 

20 recognizes in commercialism the be-all and end-all of 
national life, instead of realizing that, though an indis- 
pensable element, it is after all but one of the many ele- 
ments that go to make up true national greatness. No 
country can long endure if its foundations are not laid 

25 deep in the material prosperity which comes from thrift, 
from business energy and enterprise, from hard unsparing 
effort in the fields of industrial activity; but neither was 
any nation ever yet truly great if it relied upon material 
prosperity alone. All honor must be paid to the archi- 

3otects of our material prosperity; to the great captains of 
industry who have built our factories and our railroads; 
to the strong men who toil for wealth with brain or hand; 



THE STRENUOUS LIFE 171 

for great is the debt of the nation to these and their kind. 
But our debt is yet greater to the men whose highest type 
is to be found in a statesman like Lincoln, a soldier like 
Grant. They showed by their lives that they recognized 
the law of work, the law of strife; they toiled to win as 
competence for themselves and those dependent upon 
them; but they recognized that there were yet other and 
even loftier duties — duties to the nation and duties to the 
race. 

We cannot sit huddled within our own borders and lo 
avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do huck- 
sters who care nothing for what happens beyond. Such 
a policy would defeat even its own end; for as the nations 
grow to have ever wider and wider interests and are brought 
into closer and closer contact, if we are to hold our own is 
in the struggle for naval and commercial supremacy, we 
must build up our power without our own borders. We 
must build the Isthmian canal, and we must grasp the 
points of vantage which will enable us to have our say in 
deciding the destiny of the oceans of the East and the 20 
West. ... 

I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country 
calls not for the life of ease, but for the life of strenuous 
endeavor. The Twentieth Century looms before us big 
with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if 2S 
we seek merely swollen, slothful ease, and ignoble peace, 
if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win 
at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold 
dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by 
and will win for themselves the domination of the world. 30 
Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to 
do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold right- 



172 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

eousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest 
and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical 
methods. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral 
or physical, within or without the nation, provided we 
5 are certain that the strife is justified; for it is only through 
strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we 
shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness. 



OUR RESPONSIBILITIES AS A NATION 

No people on earth have more cause to be thankful 
than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of 
boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude 
to the Giver of Good, who has blessed us with the 
conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large as 
measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a peo- 
ple it has been granted to lay the foundations of our na- 
tional life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the 
ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties 
which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of lo 
a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight 
for our existence against any alien race; and yet our 
life has called for the vigor and effort without which the 
manher and hardier virtues wither away. Under such 
conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and the is 
success which we have had in the past, the success which 
we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause 
in us no feeling of vain glory, but rather a deep and 
abiding realization of all which life has offered us; a full 
acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours; ana 20 
a fixed determination to show that under a free govern- 
ment a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regards the 
things of the body and the things of the soul. 

Much has been given to us, and much will rightly be 
expected from us. We have duties to others and duties 25 
to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have be- 
come a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness 
into relations with the other nations of the earth; and 
we must behave as beseems a people with such responsi- 

173 



174 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

bilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our 
attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. 
We must show not only in our words but in our deeds 
that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will 

5 by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous 
recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity 
in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown 
not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful 
to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less in- 

10 sistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish 
peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of 
righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right 
and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that 
acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear 

15 us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us 
out as a subject for insolent aggression. 

Our relations with the other Powers of the world are 
important; but still more important are our relations 
among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, 

20 and in power as this nation has seen during the century 
and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied 
by a like growth in the problems which are ever before 
every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably 
means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers 

25 faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now 
face other perils, the very existence of which it was im- 
possible that they should foresee. Modern hfe is both 
complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought 
by the extraordinary industrial development of the last 

30 half century are felt in every fiber of our social and 
political being. Never before have men tried so vast 
and formidable an experiment as that of administering 



OUR RESPONSIBILITIES AS A NATION 175 

the affairs of a continent under the form of a democratic 
republic. The conditions, which have told for our mar- 
velous material well-being, which have developed to a 
very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual 
initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety ia-s 
separable from the accumulation of great wealth in in- 
dustrial centers. Upon the success of our experiment 
much depends; not only as regards our own welfare, but 
as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause 
of free self-government throughout the world will rock lo 
to its foundations; and therefore our responsibility is 
heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to 
the generations yet unborn. There is no good reason why 
we should fear the future but there is every good reason 
why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from our- 15 
selves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to 
approach these problems with the unbending, unflinch- 
ing purpose to solve them aright. 

Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though 
the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before 20 
our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, 
the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and 
these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, 
remains essentially unchanged. We know that self- 
government is difficult. We know that no people needs 25 
such high traits of character as that people which seeks 
to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed 
will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith 
that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men 
of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us 30 
the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn 
have an assured confidence that we shall be able to 



176 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children 
and our children's children. To do so we must show, not 
merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, 
the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of 
5 hardihood and endurance, and above all the power of 
devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who 
founded this Repubhc in the days of Washington, which 
made great the men who preserved this Republic in the 
days of Abraham Lincoln. 



THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 

Over a century ago Washington laid the corner-stone 
of the Capitor in what was then httle more than a tract 
of wooded wilderness here beside the Potomac. We now 
find it necessary to provide by great additional buildings 
for the business of the Government. This growth in the 5 
need for the housing of the Government is but a proof 
and example of the way in which the Nation has grown 
and the sphere of action of the National Government has 
grown. We now administer the affairs of a Nation in 
which the extraordinary growth of population has been lo 
outstripped bj^ the growth of wealth and the growth in 
complex interests. The natural problems that face us 
to-day are not such as they were in Washington's time, but 
the underlying facts of human nature are the same now 
as they were then. Under altered external form we war is 
with the same tendencies toward evil that were evident 
in Washington's time, and are helped by the same tend- 
encies for good. It is about some of these that I wish to 
say a word to-day. 

In Bunyan's° ^* Pilgrim's Progress" you may recall the 20 
description of the Man with the Muck-rake,° the man 
who could look no way but downward, with the muck- 
rake in his hand; who was offered a celestial crown for 
his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard 
the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to him-2S 
self the filth of the floor. 

In *^ Pilgrim's Progress" the Man with the Muck-rake 
is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on 
carnal instead of on spiritual things. Yet he also typifies 

177 



178 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

the man who in this hfe consistently refuses to see aught 
that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness 
only on that which is vile and debasing. Now, it is very 
necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is 
5 vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must 
be scraped up with the muck-rake; and there are times 
and places where this ser\dce is the most needed of all 
^the services that can be performed. But the man who 
never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or 

10 writes save of his feats with the muck-rake, speedily 
becomes, not a help to society, not an incitement to good, 
but one of the most potent forces for e\dl. 

There are, in the body politic, economic, and social, 
many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for 

15 the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless 
exposure of and attack upon every evil man, whether 
politician or business man, every evil practice, whether 
in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a bene- 
factor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the 

20 platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merci- 
less severity makes such attack, provided always that he 
in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it 
is absolutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the 
thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he 

25 may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon 
knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even 
with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with 
untruth. An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon 
character does no good, but very great harm. The soul of 

30 every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is 

assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untruthfully assailed. 

Now, it is easy to twist out of shape what I have just 



THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 179 

said, easy to affect to misunderstand it, and, if it is slurred 
over in repetition, not difficult really to misunderstand 
it. Some persons are sincerely incapable of understand- 
ing that to denounce mud-slinging does not mean the 
indorsement of whitewashing; and both the interested 5 
individuals who need whitewashing, and those others 
who practice mud-slinging, like to encourage such con- 
fusion of ideas. One of the chief counts against those 
who make indiscriminate assault upon men in business 
or men in public life is that they invite a reaction which lo 
is sure to tell powerfully in favor of the unscrupulous 
scoundrel who really ought to be attacked, who ought to 
be exposed, who ought, if possible, to be put in the peni- 
tentiary. If Aristides° is praised overmuch as just, people 
get tired of hearing it; and overcensure of the unjust finally 15 
and from similar reasons results in their favor. 

Any excess is almost sure to invite a reaction; and, 
unfortunately, the reaction, instead of taking the form of 
punishment of those guilty of the excess, is very apt to 
take the form either of punishment of the unoffending 20 
or of giving immunity, and even strength, to offenders. 
The effort to make financial or political profit out of the 
destruction of character can only result in public calamity. 
Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the 
stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid 25 
and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time act 
as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensi- 
tiveness and tend to prevent them from entering the public 
service at any price. As an instance in point, I may 
mention that one serious difficulty encountered in getting 30 
the right type of men to dig the Panama Canal° is the 
certainty that they will be exposed, both without, and, I 



180 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

am sorry to say, sometimes within, Congress, to utterly 
reckless assaults on their character and capacity. 

At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea 
is, not for immunity to but for the most unsparing ex- 
5 posure of the pohtician who betrays his trust, of the big 
business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegiti- 
mate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort 
to hunt every such man out of the position he has dis- 
graced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; 

10 but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is at- 
tacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the 
attack may do more damage to the public mind than the 
crime itself. It is because I feel that there should be no 
rest in the endless war against the forces of evil that I 

15 ask that the war be conducted mth sanity as well as with 
resolution. The men with the muck-rakes are often in- 
dispensable to the well-being of societ}^; but only if they 
know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward 
to the celestial crown above them, to the crown of worthy 

20 endeavor. There are beautiful things above and round 
about them; and if they gradually grow to feel that the 
w^hole world is nothing but muck, their power of useful- 
ness is gone. If the whole picture is painted black, there 
remains no hue whereby to single out the rascals for dis- 

25 tinction from their fellows. Such painting finally induces 
a kind of moral color-blindness; and people affected by it 
come to the conclusion that no man is really black, and 
no man really white, but that all are gray. In other words, 
they believe neither in the truth of the attack, nor in the 

30 honesty of the man who is attacked; they grow as sus- 
picious of the accusation as of the offence; it becomes well- 
nigh hopeless to stir them either to wrath against wrong- 



THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 181 

doing or to enthusiasm for what is right; and such a mental 
attitude in the pubhc gives hope to every knave, and is 
the despair of honest men. 

To assail the great and admitted evils of our political 
and industrial life with such crude and sweeping gener- 5 
alizations as to include decent men in the general con- 
demnation means the searing of the public conscience. 
There results a general attitude either of cynical behef 
in and indifference to public corruption or else of a dis- 
trustful inability to discriminate between the good and lo 
the bad. Either attitude is fraught with untold damage / 
to the country as a whole. The fool who has not sense / 
to discriminate between what is good and what is bad / 
is well-nigh as dangerous as the man who does discrim- 
inate and yet chooses the bad. There is nothing more is 
distressing to every good patriot, to every good American, 
than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation 
of dishonesty in a pubhc man as a cause for laughter. 
Such laughter is worse than the crackling of thorns° under 
a pot, for it denotes not merely the vacant mind, but the 20 
heart in which high emotions have been choked before 
they could grow to fruition. 

There is anj^ amount of good in the world, and there 
never was a time when loftier and more disinterested work 
for the betterment of mankind was being done than now. 2s 
The forces that tend for evil are great and terrible but 
the forces of truth and love and courage and honesty 
and generosity and sympathy are also stronger than ever 
before. It is a foolish and timid, no less than a wicked 
thing, to blink the fact that the forces of evil are strong, 30 
but it is even worse to fail to take into account the strength 
of the forces that tell for good. Hysterical sensationalism 



182 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

is the very poorest weapon wherewith to fight for lasting 
righteousness. The men who, with stern sobriety and 
truth, assail the many evils of our time, whether in the 
public press, or in magazines, or in books, are the leaders 
5 and allies of all engaged in the work for social and politi- 
cal betterment. But if they give good reason for distrust 
of what they say, if they chill the ardor of those who 
demand truth as a primary virtue, they thereby betray 
the good cause, and play into the hands of the very men 

10 against whom they are nominally at war. 

In his ^^Ecclesiastical PoHty'^° that fine old Elizabethan 
divine. Bishop Hooker, wrote : 

^^He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that 
they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall 

15 never want attentive and favorable hearers, because they 
know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regi- 
men is subject; but the secret lets and difficulties, which 
in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, 
they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider." 

20 This truth should be kept constantly in mind by every 
free people desiring to preserve the sanity and poise 
indispensable to the permanent success of self-government. 
Yet, on the other hand, it is vital not to permit this spirit 
of sanity and self-command to degenerate into mere mental 

25 stagnation. Bad though a state of hysterical excitement 
is, and evil though the results are which come from the 
violent oscillations such excitement invariably produces, 
yet a sodden acquiescence in evil is even worse. At this 
moment we are passing through a period of great unrest — 

30 social, political, and industrial unrest. It is of the utmost 
importance for our future that this should prove to be not 
the unrest of mere rebelliousness against life, of mere dis- 



THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 183 

satisfaction with the inevitable inequaUty of conditions, 
but the unrest of a resolute and eager ambition to secure 
the betterment of the individual and the Nation. So far 
as this movement of agitation throughout the country- 
takes the form of a fierce discontent with evil, of a deter- 5 
mination to punish the authors of evil, whether in industry 
or politics, the feeling is to be heartily welcomed as a sign 
of healthy Ufe. 

If, on the other hand, it turns into a mere crusade of 
appetite against appetite, a contest between the brutal 10 
greed of the ^^ have-nots'^ and the brutal greed of the 
^^ haves,'' then it has no significance for good, but only 
for evil. If it seeks to estabhsh a, line of cleavage, not 
along the line which divides good men from bad, but along 
that other line, running at right angles thereto, which 15 
divides those who are well off from those who are less 
well off, then it will be fraught with immeasurable harm 
to the body pohtic. 

We can no more and no less afford to condone evil in the 
man of capital than evil in the man of no capital. The 20 
wealthy man who exults because there is a failure of jus- 
tice in the effort to bring some trust magnate to an account 
for his misdeeds is as bad as, and no worse than, the so- 
called labor leader who clamorously strives to excite a 
foul class feeling on behalf of some other labor leader who 25 
is implicated in murder. One attitude is as bad as the 
other and no worse; in each case the accused is entitled 
to exact justice; and in neither case is there need of action 
by others which can be construed into an expression of 
sympathy for crime. There is nothing more anti-social 30 
in a democratic republic hke ours than such vicious class- 
consciousness. The multi-millionaires who band together 



1;S4 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

to prevent the enactment of proper laws for the supervision 
of the use of wealth, or to assail those who resojutely en- 
force such laws, or to exercise a hidden influence upon the 
poUtical destinies of parties or individuals in their own 
5 personal interest, are a menace to the whole community; 
and a menace at least as great is offered by those laboring 
men who band together to defy the law, and by their 
openly used influence to coerce law-upholding public 
officials. The apologists for either class of offenders are 

10 themselves enemies of good citizenship; and incidentally 
they are also, to a peculiar degree, the enemies of every 
honest-dealing corporation and every law-abiding labor 
union. 

It is a prime necessity that if the present unrest is to 

15 result in permanent good the emotion shall be trans- 
lated into action, and that the action shall be marked by 
honesty, sanity, and self-restraint. There is mighty 
little good in a mere spasm of reform. The reform that 
counts is that which comes through steady, continuous 

20 growth; violent emotionalism leads to exhaustion. 

It is important to this people to grapple with the 
problems connected with the amassing of enormous for- 
tunes, and the use of those fortunes, both corporate 
and individual, in business. We should discriminate in 

25 the sharpest way between fortunes well won and fortunes 
ill won; between those gained as an incident to perform- 
ing great services to the community as a whole, and those 
gained in evil fashion by keeping just within the hmits 
of mere law-honesty. Of course no matter of charity in 

30 spending such fortunes in any way compensates for mis- 
conduct in making them. As a matter of personal con- 
viction, and without pretending to discuss the details 



THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 185 

or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately 
have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as 
that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain 
amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed 
upon death to any individual — a tax so framed as to puts 
it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous 
fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any 
one individual; the tax, of course, to be imposed by the 
National and not the State Government. Such taxa- 
tion should, of course, be aimed merely at the inherit- lo 
ance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes 
swollen beyond all healthy limits. ^ 

Again, the National Government must in some form 
exercise supervision over corporations engaged in inter- 
State business — and all large corporations are engaged in 15 
inter-State business,— whether by license or otherwise, 
so as to permit us to deal with the far-reaching evils of 
over-capitalization. This year we are making a beginning 
in the direction of serious effort to settle some of these 
economic problems by the railway rate legislation. Such 20 
legislation, if so framed, as I am sure it will be, as to 
secure definil^ and tangible results, will amount to some- 
thing of itself; and it will amount to a great deal more in 
so far as it is taken as a first step in the direction of a 
policy of superintendence and control over corporate 25 
wealth engaged in inter-State commerce, this super- 
intendence and control not to be exercised in a spirit of 
malevolence toward the men who have created the 
secure definite and tangible results, will amount to some 
wealth, but with the firm purpose both to do justice to 30 
them and to see that they in their turn do justice to 
the public at large. 



186 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

The first requisite in the public servants who are to 
deal in this shape with corporations, whether as legisla- 
tors or as executives, is honesty. This honesty can be 
no respecter of persons. There can be no such thing as 

5 unilateral honesty. The danger is not really from corrupt 
corporations : it springs from the corruption itself, whether 
exercised for or against corporations. 

The eighth commandment reads, ^^Thou shalt not 
steal. ^' It does not read, ''Thou shalt not steal from the 

10 rich man.'^ It does not read, ''Thou shalt not steal 
from the poor man.'' It reads simply and plainly, "Thou 
shalt not steal." No good whatever will come from that 
warped and mock morality which denounces the misdeeds 
of men of wealth and forgets the misdeeds practiced at 

15 their expense; which denounces bribery, but blinds itself 
to blackmail; which foams with rage if a corporation 
secures favors by improper methods, and merely leers 
with hideous mirth if the corporation is itself wronged. 
The only public servant who can be trusted honestly to 

20 protect the rights of the public against the misdeeds of 
a corporation is that public man whx) will just as surely 
protect the corporation itself from wrongful aggression. 
If a public man is willing to yield to popular clamor and 
do wrong to the men of wealth or to rich corporations, 

25 it may be set down as certain that if the opportunity 
comes he will secretly and furtively do wrong to the 
public in the interest of a corporation. 

But, in addition to honesty, we need sanity. No hon- 
esty will make a public man useful if that man is timid 

30 or foolish, if he is a hot-headed zealot or an impracticable 
visionary. As we strive for reform we find that it is not 
at all merely the case of a long uphill pull. On the con- 



THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE 187 

trary, there is almost as much of breeching work as of 
collar work; to depend only on traces means that there will 
soon be a runawaj^ and an upset. The men of wealth 
who to-day are trying to prevent the regulation and 
control of their business in the interest of the pubhc b}^ 5 
the proper Government authorities will not succeed, in 
my judgment, in checking the progress of the movement. 
But if they did succeed they would find that they had 
sown the wind and would surely reap the whirlmnd, for 
they would ultimately provoke the violent excesses which 10 
accompany a reform coming by convulsion instead of 
by steady and natural growth. 

On the other hand, the wild preachers of unrest and 
discontent, the vAXd. agitators against the entire exist- 
ing order, the men who act crookedl}^, whether because 15 
of sinister design or from mere puzzle-headedness, the 
men who preach destruction ^dthout proposing any sub- 
stitute for what they intend to destroy, or who propose a 
substitute which would be far worse than the existing 
evils — all these men are the most dangerous opponents of 20 
real reform. If they get their wa}^, they will lead the 
people into a deeper pit than any into which they could 
fall under the present sj^stem. If they fail to get their 
way, they will still do incalculable harm by provoking the 
kind of reaction which, in its revolt against the senseless 25 
evil of their teaching, would enthrone more securely than 
ever the very evils which their misguided followers 
believe the}" are attacldng. 

More important than aught else is the development of 
the broadcast sympathy of man for man. The welfare of 30 
the wage-worker, the welfare of the tiller of the soil — upon 
this depends the welfare of the entire country; their good 



188 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

is not to be sought in pulling down others; but their good 
must be the prime object of all our statesmanship. 

Materially we must strive to secure a broader economic 
opportunity for all men, so that each shall have a better 

5 chance to show the stuff of which he is made. Spirit- 
uall}^ and ethically we must strive to bring about clean 
living and right thinking. We appreciate that the things 
of the body are important; but we appreciate also that 
the things of the soul are immeasurably more important. 

10 The foundation stone of national life is, and ever must 
be, the high individual character of the average citizen. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN 
NATION 

At the outset I wish to say a word of special greeting 
to the representatives of the foreign governments here 
present. They have come to assist us in celebrating ° what 
was in very truth the birthday of this nation, for it was 
here that the colonists first settled,^ whose incoming, 5 
whose growth from their own loins and by the addition 
of newcomers from abroad, was to make the people which 
one hundred and sixty-nine years later assumed the solemn 
responsibilities and weighty duties of complete indepen- 
dence. 10 

In welcoming all of you I must say a special word, first 
to the representative of the people of Great Britain and 
Ireland. The fact that so many of our people, of whom 
as it happens I myself am one, have but a very small por- 
tion of English blood in our veins, in no way alters the 15 
other fact that this nation was founded by EngUshmen, 
by the Cavaher and the Puritan.^ Their tongue, law, 
literature, the fund of their common thought, made an 
inheritance which all of us share, and marked deep the 
lines along which we have developed. It was the men of 20 
English stock who did most in casting the mold into which 
our national character was run. 

Let me furthermore greet all of you, the representatives 
of the people of continental Europe. From almost every 
nation of Europe we have drawn some part of our blood, 25 
some part of our traits. This mixture of blood has gone 
on from the beginning, and with it has gone on a kind of 
development unexampled among peoples of the stock from 

189 



190 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

which we spring; and hence to-day we differ sharply from, 
and yet in some ways are fundamentally akin to, all of 
the nations of Europe. 
Again, let me bid you welcome, representatives of our 
5 sister Republics of this continent. In the larger aspect, 
your interests and ours are identical. Your problems and 
ours are in large part the same; and as we strive to settle 
them, I pledge you herewith on the part of this nation the 
heartiest friendship and good will. 

10 Finally, let me say a special word of greeting to those 
representatives of the Asiatic nations who make up that 
newest East which is yet the most ancient East, the East 
of time immemorial. In particular, let me express a word 
of hearty welcome to the representative of the mighty 

15 island empire of Japan; that empire, which, in learning 
from the West, has shown that it had so much, so very 
much, to teach the West in return. 

To all of you here gathered I express my thanks for 
your coming, and I extend to you my earnest wishes for 

20 the welfare of j^our several nations. The world has moved 
so far that it is no longer necessary to believe that one 
nation can rise only by thrusting another down. All far- 
sighted statesmen, all true patriots, now earnestly wish 
that the leading nations of mankind, as in their several 

25 ways they struggle constantly toward a higher civiliza- 
tion, a higher humanity, may advance hand in hand, 
united only in a generous rivalry to see which can best do 
its allotted work in the world. I believe that there is a ris- 
ing tide in human thought which tends for righteous in- 

30 ternational peace; a tide which it behooves us to guide 
through rational channels to sane conclusions; and all of 
us here present can well afford to take to heart St. Paul's 



DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN NATION 191 

counsel: ^^If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live 
peaceably with all men/^ 

We have met to-day to celebrate the opening of the 
Exposition which itself commemorates the first permanent 
settlement of men of our stock in Virginia, the first be- 5 
ginning of what has since become this mighty RepubUc. 
Three hundred years ago a handful of English adven- 
turers, who had crossed the ocean in what we should now 
call cockle-boats, as clumsy as they were frail, landed in 
the great wooded wilderness, the Indian-haunted waste, 10 
which then stretched down to the water's edge along the 
entire Atlantic coast. They were not the first men of 
European race to settle in what is now the United States, 
for there were already Spanish settlements in Florida and 
on the headwaters of the Rio Grande; and the French, is 
who at almost the same time were struggling up the St. 
Lawrence, were likewise destined to form permanent set- 
tlements on the Great Lakes and in the valley of the 
Mississippi before the people of English stock went west- 
ward of the Alleghenies. Moreover, both the Dutch and 20 
the Swedes were shortly to found colonies between the 
two sets of English colonies, those that grew up around 
the Potomac and those that grew up on what is now the 
New England Coast. Nevertheless, this landing at 
Jamestown possesses for us of the United States an alto- 25 
gether peculiar significance, and this without regard to 
our several origins. The men who landed at James toAvn 
and those who, thirteen years later, landed at Plymouth, 
all of English stock, and their fellow-settlers who during 
the next few decades streamed in after them, were those 30 
who took the lead in shaping the life history of this people 
in the colonial and revolutionary days. It was they who 



192 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

bent into definite shape our nation while it was still young 
enough most easily, most readily, to take on the char- 
acteristics which were to become part of its permanent 
life habit. 
5 Yet let us remember that while this early English colo- 
nial stock has left deeper than all others upon our national 
life the mark of its strong twin individualities, the mark 
of the Cavalier and of the Puritan — nevertheless, this 
stock, not only from its environment but also from the 

10 presence with it of other stocks, almost from the beginning 
began to be differentiated strongly from any European 
people. As I have already said, about the time the first 
English settlers landed here, the Frenchman and the 
Spaniard, the Swede and the Dutchman, also came hither 

15 as permanent dwellers, who left their seed beliind them 
to help shape and partially to inherit our national Hfe. 
The German, the Irishman, and the Scotchman came 
later, but still in colonial times. Before the outbreak of 
the Revolution the American people, not only because of 

20 their surroundings, physical and spiritual, but because 
of the mixture of blood that had already begun to take 
place, represented a new and distinct ethnic type. This 
type has never been fixed in blood. All through the colo- 
nial days new waves of immigration from time to time 

25 swept hither across the ocean, now from one country, 
now from another. The same thing has gone on ever 
since our birth as a nation; and for the last sixty years the 
tide of immigi'ation has been at the full. The newcomers 
are sot)n absorbed into our eager national life, and are 

30 radically and profoundly changed thereby, the rapidity 
of their assimilation being marvelous. But each gi'oup 
of newcomers, as it adds its blood to the life, also changes 



DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN NATION 193 

it somewhat, and this change and growth and development 
have gone on steadily, generation by generation, through- 
out three centuries. 

The pioneers of our people who first landed on these 
shores on that eventful day three centuries ago, had be- 5 
fore them a task which during the early years was of 
heartbreaking danger and difficulty. The conquest of 
a new continent is iron work. People who dwell in old 
civilizations and find that therein so much of humanity^s 
lot is hard, are apt to complain against the conditions as lo 
being solely due to man and to speak as if life could be 
made easy and simple if there were but a virgin continent 
in which to work. It is true that the pioneer life was 
simpler, but it was certainly not easier. As a matter of 
fact, the first work of the pioneers in taking possession 15 
of a lonely wilderness is so rough, so hard, so dangerous 
that all but the strongest spirits fail. The early iron 
days of such a conquest search out alike the weak in body 
and the weak in soul. In the warfare against the rugged 
sternness of primeval Nature, only those can conquer 20 
who are themselves unconquerable. It is not until the 
first bitter years have passed that the life becomes easy 
enough to invite a mass of newcomers, and so great are 
the risk, hardship, and toil of the early years that there 
always exists a threat of lapsing back from civihzation. 25 

The history of the pioneers of Jamestown, of the 
founders of Virginia, illustrates the truth of all this. 
Famine and pestilence and war menaced the Httle band 
of daring men who had planted themselves alone on the 
edge of a frowning continent. Moreover, as men ever 30 
find, whether in the tiniest frontier community or in the 
vastest and most highly organized and complex civiHzed 



194 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

society, their worst foes were in their own bosoms. Dis- 
sension, distrust, the inabiUty of some to work and the 
unwiUingness of others, jealousy arrogance and envy, 
folly and laziness — in short all the shortcomings with 

5 which we have to grapple now, were faced by those 
pioneers, and at moments threatened their whole enter- 
prise with absolute ruin. It was some time before the 
ground on which the}^ had landed supported them, in 
spite of its potential fertility, and they looked across the 

10 sea for supplies. At one moment so hopeless did they be- 
come that the whole colony embarked, and was only saved 
from abandoning the country by the opportune arrival of 
help from abroad. 

At last they took root in the land, and were already 

15 prospering when the Pilgrims landed at Pl^miouth. In a 
few years a great inflow of settlers began. Four of the 
present States of New England were founded. Virginia 
waxed apace. The Carolinas grew up to thfc south of it, 
and Maryland to the north of it. The Dutch colonies 

20 between, which had already absorbed the Swedish, were 
in their turn absorbed by the English. Pennsylvania was 
founded and, later still, Georgia. There were many wars 
with the Indians and with the dauntless captains whose 
banners bore the lihes of France. At last the British flag 

25 flew without a rival in all eastern North America. Then 
came the successful struggle for national independence. 

For half a century after we became a separate nation 
there was comparatively little immigration to this country. 
Then the tide once again set hither, and has flowed in 

soever-increasing size until in each of the last three years 
a greater number of people came to these shores than 
had landed on them during the entire colonial period. 



DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN NATION 195 

Generation by generation these people have been ab- 
sorbed into the national life. Generally their sons, almost 
always their grandsons, are indistinguishable from one 
another and from their fellow-Americans descended from 
the colonial stock. For all alike the problems of our ex- 5 
istence are fundamentally the same, and for all alike 
these problems change from generation to generation. 
In the colonial period, and for at least a century after 
its close, the conquest of the continent, the expansion of 
our people westward, to the AUeghenies, then to the Mis- lo 
sissippi, then to the Pacific, was always one of the most 
important tasks, and sometimes the most important, in 
our national life. Behind the first settlers the condi- 
tions grew easier, and in the older-settled regions of all 
the colonies life speedily assumed much of comfort and is 
something of luxury; and though generally it was on a 
much more democratic basis than life in the Old World, 
it was by no means democratic when judged by our 
modern standards; and here and there, as in the tide- 
water regions of Virginia, a genuine aristocracy grew and 20 
flourished. But the men who first broke ground in the 
virgin wilderness, whether on the Atlantic coast, or in 
the interior, fought hard for mere life. In the early 
stages the frontiersman had to do battle with the savage, 
and when the savage was vanquished there remained the 25 
harder strain of war with the hostile forces of soil and 
cUmate, with flood, fever, and famine. There was sick- 
ness, and bitter weather; there were no roads; there was 
a complete lack of all but the very roughest and most ab- 
solute necessaries. Under such circumstances the men 30 
and women w^ho made ready the continent for civilization 
were able themselves to spend but little time in doing 



196 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

aught but the rough work which was to make smooth 
the ways of their successors. In consequence observers 
whose insight was spoiled by lack of sjTiipathy always 
found both the settlers and their lives unattractive and 
5 repellent. In Martin Chuzzlewit° the description of 
America, culminating in the description of the frontier 
town of Eden, was true and lifelike from the standpoint 
of one content to look merely at the outer shell; and yet 
it was a community like Eden that gave birth to Abraham 

10 Lincoln; it was men such as were therein described from 
whose loins Andrew Jackson° sprang. 

Hitherto each generation among us has had its allotted 
task, now heavier, now lighter. In the Revolutionary 
War the business was to achieve independence. Immedi- 

15 ately afterwards there was an even more momentous 
task; that to achieve the national unity and the capacity 
for orderly development, without which our liberty, our 
independence, would have been a curse and not a blessing. 
In each of these two contests, while there were many 

20 great leaders from many different States, it is but fair to 
say that the foremost place was taken by the soldiers and 
the statesmen of Virginia; and to Virginia w^as reserved 
the honor of producing the hero of both movements, the 
hero of the war, and of the peace that made good the re- 

25 suits of the war — George Washington; while the two 
great political tendencies of the time can be symbolized 
by the names of two other great Virginians — Jefferson^ 
and Marshair — from one of whom we inherit the abiding 
trust in the people which is the foundation stone of de- 

3omocracy, and from the other the power to develop on be- 
half of the people a coherent and powerful government, a 
genuine and representative nationality. 



DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN NATION 197 

Two generations passed before the second great crisis 
of our history had to be faced. Then came the Civil War, 
terrible and bitter in itself and in its aftermath, but a 
struggle from which the Nation finally emerged united 
in fact as well as in name, united forever. Oh, my hear- 5 
ers, my fellow countrymen, great indeed has been our 
good fortune; for as time clears away the mists that once 
shrouded brother from brother and made each look ^^as 
through a glass darkly ^^ at the other, we can all feel the 
same pride in the valor, the devotion and the fealty toward lo 
the right as it was given to each to see the right, showTi alike 
by the men Avho wore the blue and by the men who wore 
the gray. Rich and prosperous though we are as a people, 
the proudest heritage that each of us has, no matter 
where he may dwell. North or South, East or West, is the 15 
immaterial heritage of feeling, the right to claim as his 
own all the valor and all the steadfast devotion to duty 
shown by the men of both the great armies, of the soldiers 
whose leader was Grant° and the soldiers whose leader 
was Lee.° The men and the women of the Civil War did 20 
their duty bravely and well in the days that were dark and 
terrible and splendid. We, their descendants, who pay 
proud homage to their memories, and glory in the feats 
of might of one side no less than of the other, need to keep 
steadily in mind that the homage which counts is the hom- 26 
age of heart and of hand, and not of the hps, the homage 
of deeds and not of words only. We, too, in our turn,, 
must prove our truth by our endeavor. We must show 
ourselves worthy sons of the men of the mighty days by 
the way in which we meet the problems of our own time. 30 
We carry our heads high because our fathers did well in 
the years that tried men's souls; and we must in our turn 



198 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

SO bear ourselves that the children who come after us may 
feel that we too have done our duty. 

We can not afford to forget the maxim° upon which 
Washington insisted, that the surest way to avert war is 

5 to be prepared to meet it. Nevertheless the duties that 
most concern us of this generation are not military, but 
social and industrial. Each community must always 
dread the evils which spring up as attendant upon the 
very qualities which give it success. We of this mighty 

10 western Republic have to grapple with the dangers that 
spring from popular self-government tried on a scale 
incomparably vaster than ever before in the history of 
mankind, and from an abounding material prosperity 
greater also than anything which the world has hitherto 

15 seen. 

As regards the first set of dangers, it behooves us to re- 
member that men can never escape being governed. 
Either they must govern themselves or they must submit 
to being governed by others. If from lawlessness or fickle- 

2oness, from folly or self-indulgence, they refuse to govern 
themselves, then most assuredly in the end they will have 
to be governed from the outside. They can prevent the 
need of government from without only by showing that 
they possess the power of government from within. A 

25 sovereign can not make excuses for his failures; a sov- 
ereign must accept the responsibility for the exercise of 
the power that inheres in him; and where, as is true in our 
Republic, the people are sovereign, then the people must 
show a sober understanding and a sane and steadfast pur- 

30 pose if they are to preserve that orderly liberty upon which 
as a foundation every republic must rest. 

In industrial matters our enormous prosperity has 



DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN NATION 199 

brought with it certain grave evils. It is our duty to try 
to cut out these evils without at the same time destroy- 
ing our well-being itself. This is an era of combination 
alike in the world of capital and in the world of labor. 
Each kind of combination can do good, and yet each, 5 
however powerful, must be opposed when it does ill. At 
the moment the greatest problem before us is how to ex- 
ercise such control over the business use of vast wealth, 
individual, but especially corporate, as will insure its not 
being used against the interest of the public, while yet lo 
permitting such ample legitimate profits as will encourage 
individual initiative. It is our business to put a stop to 
abuses and to prevent their recurrence, without showing 
a spirit of mere vindictiveness for what has been done in 
the past. In John Morley^s brilliant sketch^ of Burke he i5 
lays especial stress upon the fact that Burke more than 
almost any other thinker or politician of his time realized 
the profound lesson that in politics we are concerned not 
with barren rights but with duties; not with abstract 
truth, but with practical morality. He especially eulo-20 
gizes the way in which in his efforts for economic reform, 
Burke combined unshakable resolution in pressing the 
reform with a profound temperateness of spirit which 
made him, while bent on the extirpation of the evil system, 
refuse to cherish an unreasoning and vindictive ill will 25 
toward the men who had benefited by it. Said Burke, 
^^If I can not reform with equity, I will not reform at 
all. . . . (There is) a state to preserve as well as a state 
to reform.^^ 

This is the exact spirit in which this country should move 30 
to the reform of abuses of corporate wealth. The wrong- 
doer, the man who swindles and cheats, whether on a big 



200 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

scale or a little one, shall receive at our hands mercy as 
scant as if he committed crimes of violence or brutaUty. 
We are unalterably determined to prevent wrongdoing 
in the future; we have no intention of trying to wreak 

5 such an indiscriminate vengeance for . wrongs done in the 
past as would confound the innocent with the guilty. Our 
purpose is to build up rather than to tear down. We 
show ourselves the truest friends of property when we 
make it evident that we ^dll not tolerate the abuses of 

10 property. We are steadily bent on preserving the insti- 
tution of private property; we combat every tendency 
toward reducing the people to economic servitude; and 
we care not whether the tendency is due to a sinister agita- 
tion directed against all property, or whether it is due to 

15 the actions of those members of the predatory classes 
whose anti-social power is immeasurably increased be- 
cause of the very fact that they possess wealth. 

Above all, we insist that while facing changed conditions 
and new problems, we must face them in the spirit which 

20 our forefathers showed when they founded and preserved 
this Republic. The corner-stone of the Republic lies in 
our treating each man on his worth as a man, paying no 
heed to his creed, his birthplace, or his occupation, ask- 
ing not whether he is rich or poor, whether he labors with 

25 head or hand; asking only whether he acts decently and 
honorably in the various relations of his life, whether he 
behaves well to his family, to his neighbors, to the State. 
We base our regard for each man on the essentials and 
not the accidents. We judge him not by his profession, 

30 but by his deeds; by his conduct, not by what he has 
acquired of this world's goods. Other republics have 
fallen, because the citizens gradually grew to consider the 



DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN NATION 201 

interests of a class before the interests of the whole; for 
when such was the case it mattered httle whether it was 
the poor who plundered the rich or the rich who exploited 
the poor; in either event the end of the Republic was at 
hand. We are resolute in our purpose not to fall into 5 
such a pit. This great Republic of ours shall never be- 
come the government of a plutocracy, and it shall never 
become the government of a mob. God willing, it shall 
remain what our fathers who founded it meant it to be — 
a government in which each man stands on his worth as lo 
a man, where each is given the largest personal liberty 
consistent with securing the well-being of the whole, and 
where, so far as in us lies, we strive continually to secure 
for each man such equality of opportunity that in the 
strife of life he may have a fair chance to show the stuff 15 
that is in him. We are proud of our schools and of the 
trained intelligence they give our children the oppor- 
tunity to acquire. But what we care for most is the 
character of the average man; for we believe that if the 
average of character in the individual citizen is sufficiently 20 
high, if he possesses those qualities which make him worthy 
of respect in his family life and in his work outside, as 
well as the qualities which fit him for success in the hard 
struggle of actual existence — that if such is the character 
of our individual citzenship, there is literally no height 25 
of triumph unattainable in this vast experiment of gov- 
ernment by, of, and for a free people. 



CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 

Governors of the Several States and Gentlemen: 

I welcome you to this conference at the White House. 
You have come hither at my request so that we may join 
together to consider the question of the conservation and 
use of the great fundamental sources of wealth of this 
5 nation. So vital is this question that for the first time in 
our history the chief executive officers of the states sep- 
arately and of the states together forming the nation have 
met to consider it. 

With the Governors come men from each state chosen 

10 for their special acquaintance with the terms of the prob- 
lem that is before us. Among them are experts in natural 
resources and representatives of national organizations 
concerned in the development and use of these resources; 
the Senators and Representatives in Congress; the Su- 

ispreme Court, the Cabinet and the Inland Waterways 
Commission have likewise been invited to the conference, 
which is therefore national in a peculiar sense. 

This conference on the conservation of natural re- 
sources is in effect a meeting of the representatives of all 

20 the people of the United States called to consider the 
weightiest problem now before the nation, and the oc- 
casion for the meeting lies in the fact that the natural re- 
sources of our country are in danger of exhaustion if we 
permit the old wasteful methods of exploiting them longer 

25 to continue. 

With the rise of peoples from savagery to civilization, 
and with the consequent growth in the extent and variety 
of the needs of the average man, there comes a steadily 

202 



CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 203 

increasing growth of the amount demanded by this average 
man from the actual resources of the country. Yet, rather 
curiously, at the same time the average man is likely to 
lose his realization of this dependence upon nature. 

Savages, and very primitive peoples generally, concern 5 
themselves only with superficial natural resources; with 
those which they obtain from the actual surface of the 
ground. As peoples become a little less primitive their 
industries, although in a rude manner, are extended to 
resources below the surface; then, with what we call civil- lo 
ization and the extension of knowledge, more resources 
come into use, industries are multiplied and foresight 
begins to become a necessary and prominent factor in 
life. Crops are cultivated, animals are domesticated and 
metals are mastered. 15 

Every step of the progress of mankind is marked by 
the discovery and use of natural resources previously 
unused. Without such progressive knowledge and utiliza- 
tion of natural resources population could not grow, nor 
industries multiply, nor the hidden wealth of the earth 20 
be developed for the benefit of mankind. 

From the first beginnings of civilization, on the banks 
of the Nile and the Euphrates, the industrial progress of 
the world has gone on slowly, with occasional setbacks, 
but on the whole steadily, through tens of centuries to 25 
the present day. But of late the rapidity of the progress 
has increased at such a rate that more space has been 
actually covered during the century and a quarter occupied 
by our national life than during the preceding six thousand 
years that take us back to the earliest monuments of 30 
Egypt, to the earliest cities of the Babylonian plain. 

When the founders of this nation met at Independence 



204 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

Hall in Philadelphia the conditions of commerce had not 
fundamentally changed from what they were when the 
Phoenician keels first furrowed the lonely waters of the 
Mediterranean. The differences were those of degree, 
5 not of kind, and they were not in all cases even those of 
degree. Mining was carried on fundamentally as it had 
been carried on by the Pharaohs in the countries adjacent 
to the Red Sea. 

The wares of the merchants of Boston, of Charleston, 
10 like the wares of the merchants of Nineveh and Sidon, if 
they went by water w^ere carried by boats propelled by 
sails or oars; if they went by land were carried in wagons 
drawn by beasts of draft or in packs on the backs of beasts 
of burden. The ships that crossed the high seas were bet- 
is ter than the ships that had once crossed the ^gean, but 
they were of the same type, after all — they were wooden 
ships propelled by sails; and on land the roads were not 
as good as the roads of the Roman Empire, while the serv- 
ice of the posts was probably inferior. 
20 In Washington's time anthracite coal was known only 
as a useless black stone; and the great fields of bituminous 
coal were undiscovered. As steam was imknown, the use 
of coal for power production was undreamed of. Water 
was practically the only source of power, save the labor of 
25 men and animals; and this power was used onl}^ in the 
most primitive fashion. But a few small iron deposits 
had been found in this country, and the use of iron by our 
countrymen was very small. Wood was practically the 
only fuel, and what lumber was sawed was consimied 
30 locally, while the forests were regarded chiefly as obstruc- 
tions to settlement and cultivation. 

Such was the degree of progress to which civilized man- 



CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 205 

kind had attained when this nation began its career. It is 
almost impossible for us in this day to reahze how little 
our Revolutionar}^ ancestors knew of the great store of 
natural resources whose discovery and use have been such 
vital factors in the groTvth and greatness of this nation, 5 
and how little they required to take from this store in 
order to satisfy their needs. 

Since then our knowledge and use of the resources of 
the present territory of the United States have increased 
a hundredfold. Indeed, the growi:h of this nation by lo 
leaps and bounds makes one of the most striking and 
important chapters in the history of the world. Its groTvi^h 
has beeil due to the rapid development, and, alas! that it 
should be said, to the rapid destruction, of our natural 
resources. Nature has supplied to us in the United States, is 
and still supplies to us, more kinds of resources in a more 
lavish degree than has ever been the case at any other time 
or with any other people. Our position in the world has 
been attained by the extent and thoroughness of the con- 
trol we have achieved over Nature; but we are more, and 20 
not less, dependent upon what she furnishes than at any 
previous time of history since the days of primitive man. 

Yet our fathers, though they knew so little of the re- 
sources of the country, exercised a wise forethought in 
reference thereto. Washington clearly saw that the per- 25 
petuity of the states could only be secured by union and 
that the only feasible basis of union was an economic one; 
in other words, that it must be based on the development 
and use of their natural resources. Accordingly, he helped 
to outline a scheme of commercial development, and by 30 
his influence an interstate waterways commission was ap- 
pointed by Virginia and Maryland. 



206 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

It met near where we are now meeting, in Alexandria, 
adjourned to Mount Vernon, and took up the considera- 
tion of interstate commerce by the only means then avail- 
able, that of water. Further conferences were arranged, 

5 first at Annapolis and then at Philadelphia. It was in 
Philadelphia that the representatives of all the states met 
for what was in its original conception merely a water^^ays 
conference; but when they had closed their deliberations 
the outcome was the Constitution which made the states 

10 into a nation. 

The Constitution of the United States thtis grew in 
large part out of the necessity for united action in the wise 
use of one of our natural resources. The wise use of all 
of our natural resources, which are our national resources 

15 as well, is the great material question of to-day. I have 
asked 3^ou to come together now because the enormous 
consumption of these resources, and the threat of immi- 
nent exhaustion of some of them, due to reckless and waste- 
ful use, once more call for common effort, common action. 

20 Since the days when the Constitution was adopted, 
steam and electricity have revolutionized the industrial 
world. Nowhere has the revolution been so great as in 
our own country. The discovery and utilization of min- 
eral fuels and alloys have given us the lead over all other 

25 nations in the production of steel. The discovery and 
utilization of coal and iron have given us our railways, 
and have led to such industrial development as has 
never before been seen. The vast wealth of lumber in 
our forests, the riches of our soils and mines, the discovery 

30 of gold and mineral oils, combined with the efficiency of 
our transportation, have made the conditions of our life 
unparalleled in comfort and convenience. 



CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 207 

The steadily increasing drain on these natural re- 
sources has promoted to an extraordinary degree the 
complexity of our industrial and social life. Moreover, 
this unexampled development has had a determining 
effect upon the character and opinions of our people. The 5 
demand for efficiency in the great task has given us vigor, 
effectiveness, decision and power, and a capacity for 
achievement which in its own lines has never -yet been 
matched. So great and so rapid has been our material 
growth that there has been a tendency to lag behind in 10 
spiritual and moral growth; but that is not the subject 
upon which I speak to you to-day. 

Disregarding for the moment the question of moral pur- 
pose, it is safe to say that the prosperity of our people 
depends directly on the energy and intelligence with 15 
which our natural resources are used. It is equally clear 
that these resources are the final basis of national power 
and perpetuit}^ Finally, it is ominousl}^ evident that 
these resources are in the course of rapid exhaustion. 

This nation began with the belief that its landed posses- 20 
sions were illimitable and capable of supporting all the 
people who might care to make our country their home; 
but already the hmit of unsettled land is in sight, and 
indeed but little land fitted for agriculture now remains 
unoccupied save what can be reclaimed by irrigation and 25 
drainage. We began w^th an unapproached heritage of 
forests; more than half of the timber is gone. We began 
with coal fields more extensive than those of any other 
nation and with iron ores regarded as inexhaustible, and 
many experts now declare that the end of both iron and30 
coal is in sight. 

The mere increase in our consumption of coal during 



208 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

1907 over 1906 exceeded the total consumption in 1876, 
the centennial year. The enormous stores of mineral oil 
and gas are largely gone. Our natural waterways are not 
gone, but they have been so injured by neglect and by 
5 the division of responsibility and utter lack of system in 
dealing with them that there is less navigation on them 
now than there was fifty years ago. Finally, we began 
with soils of unexampled fertility and we have so im- 
poverished them by injudicious use and by failing to check 

10 erosion that their crop-producing power is diminishing 
instead of increasing. In a word, we have thoughtlessly, 
and to a large degree unnecessarily, diminished the 
resources upon which not only our prosperity but the 
prosperity of our children must always depend. 

15 We have become great because of the lavish use of our 
resources, and we have just reason to be proud of our 
growth. But the time has come to inquire seriously what 
will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, 
the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted, when the soils 

20 shall have been still further impoverished and washed 
into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields 
and obstructing navigation. These questions do not 
relate only to the next century or to the next generation. 
It is time for us now as a nation to exercise the same 

25 reasonable foresight in dealing with our great natural 

resources that would be shown by any prudent man in 

conserving and wisely using the property which contains 

the assurance of well-being for himself and his children. 

The natural resources I have enumerated can be divided 

30 into two sharply distinguished classes accordingly as 
they are or are not capable of renewal. Mines if used 
must necessarily be exliausted. The minerals do not 



CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 209 

and can not renew themselves. Therefore, in deahng with 
the coal, the oil, the gas, the iron, the metals generally, 
all that we can do is to try to see that they are wisely used. 
The exhaustion is certain to come in time. 

The second class of resources consists of those which s 
can not only be used in such manner as to leave them un- 
diminished for our cliildren, but can actually be improved 
by wise use. The soil, the forests, the waterways, come 
in this category. In dealing mth mineral resources, man 
is able to improve on nature only by putting the re- lo 
sources to a beneficial use, which in the end exhausts 
them; but in dealing with the soil and its products man 
can improve on nature by compelling the resources to 
renew and even reconstruct themselves in such manner 
as to serve increasingly beneficial uses — while the living is 
waters can be so controlled as to multiply their benefits. 

Neither the primitive man nor the pioneer was aware 
of any duty to posterity in dealing with the renewable 
resources. When the American settler felled the forests 
he felt that there was plenty of forest left for the sons 20 
who came after him. When he exhausted the soil of his 
farm he felt that his son could go W^est and take up an- 
other. So it was with his immediate successors. Wlien 
the soil washed from the farmer's fields choked the neigh- 
boring river he thought only of using the railway rather 25 
than boats for moving his produce and supplies. 

Now all this is changed. On the average the son of 
the farmer of to-day must make his living on his father's 
farm. There is no difficulty in doing this if the father 
will exercise wisdom. No wise use of a farm exhausts 30 
its fertility. So with the forests. We are on the verge 
of a timber famine in this country, and it is unpardonable 



210 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

for the nation or the states to permit any further cutting 
of our timber save in accordance with a sj^stem which 
mil provide that the next generation shall see the timber 
increased instead of diminished. Moreover, we can add 

5 enormous tracts of the most valuable possible agricul- 
tm'al land to the national domain by irrigation in* the arid 
and semi-arid regions, and by drainage of great tracts 
of swamp land in the humid regions. We can enormously 
increase our transportation facilities by the canalization 

10 of our rivers so as to complete a great system of water- 
ways on the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts and in the 
Mississippi Valley, from the Great Plains to the AUe- 
ghenies and from the northern lakes to the mouth of the 
mighty Father of Waters. But all these various uses of 

15 our natural resources are so closely connected that they 
should be co-ordinated, and should be treated as part 
of one coherent plan and not in haphazard and piecemeal 
fashion. 

It is largely because of this that I appointed the Water- 

20 waj^s Commission last year, and that I have sought to 
perpetuate its work. I wish to take this opportunity to 
express in heartiest fashion my acknowledgment to all 
the members of the commission. At great personal sac- 
rifice of time and effort they have rendered a ser\dce to 

25 the public for which we cannot be too grateful. Especial 
credit is due to the initiative, the energ}^, the devotion 
to duty and the far-sightedness of Gifford Pinchot,° to 
whom we owe so much of the progress we have already 
made in handling this matter of the co-ordination and 

30 conservation of natural resources. If it had not been for 
him this convention neither would nor could have been 
called. 



CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 211 

We are coming to recognize as never before the right 
of the nation to guard its own future in the essential mat- 
ter of natural resources. In the past we have admitted 
the right of the individual to injure the future of the 
Republic for his own present profit. The time has come 5 
for a change. As a people we have the right and the duty, 
second to none other but the right and duty of obeying 
the moral law, of requiring and doing justice, to protect 
ourselves and our children against the wasteful develop- 
ment of our natural resources, whether that waste is caused lo 
by the actual destruction of such resources or by maldng 
them impossible of development hereafter. 

Any right-thinking father earnestly desires and strives 
to leave his son both an untarnished name and a reason- 
able equipment for the struggle of life. So this nation i5 
as a whole should earnestly desire and strive to leave to 
the next generation the national honor unstained and the 
national resources unexhausted. There are signs that 
both the nation and the states are waking to a realization 
of this great truth. On March 10, 1908, the Supreme Court 20 
of Maine rendered an exceedingly important judicial de- 
cision. This opinion was rendered in response to questions 
as to the right of the Legislature to restrict the cutting 
of trees on private land for the prevention of drouths 
and floods, the preservation of the natural water supply 25 
and the prevention of the erosion of such lands and the 
consequent filling up of rivers, ponds and lakes. The 
forests and water power of Maine constitute the larger 
part of her wealth and form the basis of her industrial 
life, and the question submitted by the Maine Senate 30 
to the Supreme Court and the answer of the Supreme 
Court alike bear testimony to the wisdom of the people 



212 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

of Maine and clearly define a policy of conservation of 
natural resources the adoption of which is of vital im- 
portance not merely to Maine but to the whole country. 
Such a policy will preserve soil, forests, water power 
5 as a heritage for the children and the children's children 
of the men and women of this generation; for any enact- 
ment that provides for the wise utilization of the forests, 
whether in public or private ownership, and for the con- 
servation of the water resources of the country must nec- 

loessarily be legislation that will promote both private and 
public welfare; for flood prevention, water power de- 
velopment, preservation of the soil and improvement of 
navigable rivers are all promoted by such a policy of 
forest conservation. 

15 The opinion of the Maine Supreme bench sets forth 
unequivocally the principle that the property rights of 
the individual are subordinate to the rights of the com- 
munity, and especially that the waste of \\dld timber land 
derived originally from the state, involving as it would 

20 the impoverishment of the state and its people and thereby 
defeating one great purpose of government, may properly 
be prevented by state restrictions. 

The court says that there are two reasons why the right 
of the public to control and limit the use of private prop- 

25erty is peculiarly applicable to property in land: ^^ First, 
such property is not the result of productive labor, -but 
is derived solely from the state itself, the original owner; 
second, the amount of land being incapable of increase, 
if the owners of large tracts can waste them at will with- 

30 out state restrictions, the state and its people may be 
helplessly impoverished and one great purpose of gov- 
ernment defeated. . . . We do not think the proposed 



CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 213 

legislation would operate to ' take ^ private property within 
the inhibition of the Constitution. While it might re- 
strict the owner of wild and uncultivated lands in his 
use of them, might delay his taking some of the product, 
might delay his anticipated profits and even thereby 5 
might cause him some loss of profit, it would neverthe- 
less leave him his lands, their product and increase, un- 
touched, and without diminution of title, estate or 
quantity. He would still have large measures of control 
and large opportunity to realize values. He might suffer lo 
delay — but not deprivation. . . . The proposed legis- 
lation . . . would be within the legislature power and 
would not operate as a taking of private property for 
which compensation must be made.'' 

The Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey has 15 
adopted a similar view, which has recently been sustained 
by the Supreme Court of the United States. In deliver- 
ing the opinion of the court on April 6, 1908, Mr. Justice 
Holmes said: ^^The state as quasi-sovereign and repre- 
sentative of the interests of the public has a standing 20 
in court to protect the atmosphere, the water and the 
forests within its territory, irrespective of the assent or 
dissent of the private owmers of the land most immediately 
concerned. ... It appears to us that few public in- 
terests are more obvious, indisputable and independent 25 
of particular theory than the interest of the public of a 
state to maintain the rivers that are wholly Avithiij it 
substantially undiminished, except by such drafts upon 
them as the guardian of the public welfare may permit 
for the purpose of turning them to a more perfect use. 30 
This public interest is omnipresent wherever there is a 
state, and grows more pressing as population grows. . . , 



214 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

We are of opinion, further, that the constitutional power 
of the state to insist that its natural advantages shall 
remain unimpaired by its citizens is not dependent upon 
any nice estimate of the extent of present use or specula- 

5 tion as to future needs. The legal conception of the neces- 
sary is likely to be confined to somewhat rudimentary 
wants, and there are benefits from a great river that might 
escape a la^vyer's view. But the state is not required to 
submit even to an aesthetic analysis. Any analysis may 

10 be inadequate. It finds itself in possession of what all 
admit to be a great public good, and what it has it may 
keep and give no one a reason for its will. '^ 

These decisions reach the root of the idea of conservation 
of our resources in the interests of our people. 

15 Finally, let us remember that the conservation of our 
natural resources, though the gravest problem of to-day, 
is yet but part of another and greater problem to which 
this nation is not yet awake, but to which it will awake 
in time, and with which it must hereafter grapple if it is 

20 to live — the problem of national efficiency, the patriotic 
duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation. 
When the people of the United States consciously under- 
take to raise themselves as citizens, and the nation and 
the states in their several spheres, to the highest pitch 

25 of excellence in private, state and national life, and to 
do this because it is the first of all the duties of true pa- 
triotism, then and not till then the future of this nation 
in quality and in time will be assured. 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 

Strange and impressive associations rise in the mind 
of a man from the New World who speaks before this 
august body in this ancient institution of learning. Be- 
fore his eyes pass the shadows of mighty kings and war- 
like nobles, of great masters of law and theology; through 5 
the shining dust of the dead centuries he sees crowded 
figures that tell of the power and learning and splendor of 
times gone by; and he sees also. the innumerable host of 
humble students to whom clerkship meant emancipation, 
to whom it was well-nigh the only outlet from the dark lo 
thraldom of the Middle Ages. 

This was the most famous university^ of medieval Europe 
at a time when no one dreamed that there was a new world 
to discover. Its services to the cause of human knowl- 
edge already stretched far back into the remote past at 15 
the time when my forefathers, three centuries ago, were 
among the sparse band of traders, ploughmen, wood- 
choppers and fisherfollc who, in hard struggle with the 
iron unfriendliness of the Indian-haunted land, were lay- 
ing the foundations of what has now become the giant 20 
republic of the West. To conquer a continent, to tame 
the shaggy roughness of wild nature, means grim warfare; 
and the generations engaged in it cannot keep, still less 
add to, the stores of garnered wisdom which once were 
theirs, and which are still in the hands of their brethren 25 
who dwell in the old land. To conquer the wilderness 
means to wrest victory from the same hostile forces with 
which mankind struggled in the immemorial infancy of 
our race. The primeval conditions must be met by pri- 

215 



216 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

meval qualities which are incompatible with the retention 
of much that has been painfully acquired by humanity 
as through the ages it has striven upward toward civiliza- 
tion. In conditions so primitive there can be but a prim- 
5itive cultm*e. At first onl}^ the rudest schools can be 
established, for no others would meet the needs of the 
hard-driven^ sinewy folk wlio thrust forward the frontier 
in the teeth of savage man and savage nature; and many 
years elapse before any of these schools can develop into 

10 seats of higher learning and broader culture. 

The pioneer days pass; the stump-dotted clearings 
expand into vast stretches of fertile farm land; the stock- 
aded clusters of log cabins change into towns; the hunters 
of game, the fellers of trees, the rude frontier traders and 

15 tillers of the soil, the men who wander all their lives long 
through the \\ilderness as the heralds and harbingers of an 
oncoming ci\dIization, themselves vanish before the civi- 
lization for which they have prepared the way. The chil- 
dren of their successors and supplanters, and then their 

20 children and children's children, change and develop with 
extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate vices 
and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, all the good qualities 
and all the defects of an intense individualism, self-reliant, 
self-centered, far more conscious of its rights than of its 

25 duties, and blind to its own shortcomings. To* the hard 
materialism of the frontier days succeeds the hard ma- 
terialism of an industrialism even more intense and ab- 
sorbing than that of the older nations; although these 
themselves have likewise already entered on the age of a 

30 complex and predominantly industrial civilization. 

As the country grows, its people, who have won success 
in so many lines, turn back to try to recover the possessions 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 217 

of the mind and the spirit which perforce their fathers 
threw aside in order better to wage the first rough battles 
for the continent their children inherit. The leaders of 
thought and of action grope their way forward to a new 
life, realizing, sometimes dimly, sometimes clearsightedly, 5 
that the life of material gain, whether for a nation or an 
individual, is of value only as a foundation, only as there 
is added to it the uplift that comes from devotion to 
loftier ideals. The new life thus sought can in part be 
developed afresh from what is round about in the New lo 
World; but it can be developed in full only by freely 
drawing upon the treasure houses of the Old World, upon 
the treasures stored in the ancient abodes of wisdom and 
learning, such as this where I speak to-day. It is a mis- 
take for any nation merely to copy another; but it is an is 
'even greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness in any 
nation, not to be anxious to learn from another and will- 
ing and able to adapt that learning to the new national 
conditions and make it fruitful and productive therein. 
It is for us of the New World to sit at the feet of the Gam- 20 
aheP of the Old; then, if we have the right stuff in us, we 
can show that Paul in his turn can become a teacher as 
well as a scholar. 

To-day I shall speak to you on the subject of individual 
citizenship, the one subject of vital importance to you, 25 
my hearers, and to me and my countrymen, because you 
and we are citizens of great democratic republics. A 
democratic republic such as each of ours — an effort to 
realize in its full sense government by, of and for the 
people — represents the most gigantic of all possible social 30 
experiments, the one fraught with greatest possibilities 
alike for good and for evil. The success of republics like 



218 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

yours and like ours means the glory, and our failure the 
despair, of mankind; and for you and for us the question 
of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under 
other forms of government, under the rule of one man or of 
5 a very few men, the quality of the rulers is all-important. 
If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is 
high enough, then the nation may for generations lead a 
brilliant career and add substantially to the simi of world 
achievement, no matter how low the quality of the aver- 

10 age citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negh- 
gible quantity in working out the final results of that type 
of national greatness. 

But with you and vnih us the case is different. With 
j^ou here, and with us in my own home, in the long run, 

15 success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in 
which the average man, the average woman, does his or 
her dut}^, first in the ordinary, everv^-day affairs of life, 
and next in those great occasional crises which call for 
the heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good 

20 citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will 
not permanently rise higher than the main source; ard 
the main source of national power and national greatness 
is found in the aA^erage citizenship of the nation. There- 
fore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard 

25 of the average citizen is kept high ; and the average can- 
not be kept high unless the standard of the leadeis is 
very much higher. 

It is well if a large proportion of the leaders in any re- 
public, in any democracy, are, as a matter of course, drawn 

30 from the classes represented in this audience to-day; but 
only provideed that those classes possess the gifts of 
sympathy with plain people and of devotion to great 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 219 

ideals. You and those like you have received special 
advantages; you have all of you had the opportunity 
for mental training; many of you have had leisure; most 
of you have had a chance for the enjojrment of life far 
greater than comes to the majority of your fellows. To 5 
you and your kind much has been given, and from you 
much should be expected. Yet there are certain failings 
against which it is especially incumbent that both men of 
trained and cultivated intellect and men of inherited 
wealth and position, should especially guard themselves, lo 
because to these failings they are especially liable; and 
if yielded to their — your — chances of useful service are 
at an end. 

Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, 
beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to is 
himself and to others as the cynic, as the man who has 
outgro^vn emotions and behefs, the man to whom good 
and evil are as one. The poorest way to face hfe is to 
face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a 
kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who 2a 
confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what 
they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no 
more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, 
than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an atti- 
tude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and2S 
lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, 
even if it fail, comes second to achievement. A cynical 
habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work 
which the critic himself never tries to perform, an in- 
tellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with 30 
life's realities — all these are marks, not, as ih^ possessor 
would fain think, of superiority, but of weakness. They 



220 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

mark the men unfit to bear their part manfully in the 
stern strife of living, who seek, in the affectation of com- 
tempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others 
and from themselves their own weakness. The role is 

5 easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man 
who sneers alike at both criticism and performance. 

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points 
out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of 
deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs 

10 to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is 
marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives val- 
iantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, be- 
cause there is no effort without error and shortcoming; 
but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows 

15 the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends 

. himself in a worth}^ cause; who at the best knows in the 
end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the 
worst, if he fails, at least fails Avhile daring greatly, so 
that his place shall never be with those cold and timid 

20 souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Shame on 
the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to 
develop into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing 
the rough work of a workaday world! Among the free 
peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field 

25 of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life, who shrink 
from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there 
for those who deride or slight what is done by those who 
actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others 
who always profess that they would like to take action, 

30 if only the conditions of life were not what they actually 
are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid 
figure in the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 221 

fop or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose 
tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emo- 
tion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusi- 
asm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. 
Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not 5 
so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ven- 
tured, and have put forth all their heart and strength' 
It is warworn Hotspur,° spent with hard fighting, he of 
the many errors and the valiant end, over whose memory 
we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord lo 
who ^^but for the vile guns would have been a soldier. ^^ 

France has taught many lessons to other nations; surely 
one of the most important is the lesson her whole history 
teaches, that a high artistic and literary development is 
compatible with notable leadership in arms and state- is 
craft. The brilliant gallantry of the French soldier has 
for many centuries been proverbial, and during these 
same centuries at every court in Europe the ^^ freemasons 
of fashion'^ have treated the French tongue as their com- 
mon speech; while every artist and man of letters, and 20 
every man of science able to appreciate that marvel- 
ous instrument of precision, French prose, has turned 
toward France for aid and inspiration. How long the 
leadership in arms and letters has lasted is curiously 
illustrated by the fact that the earhest masterpiece in a 25 
modern tongue is the splendid French epic ° which tells of 
Roland's doom and the vengeance of Charlemagne when 
the lords of the Frankish host were stricken at Ronces- 
valles. 

Let those who have keep, let those who have not strive 30 
to attain a high standard of cultivation and scholarship. 
Yet let us remember that these stand second to certain 



222 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

other things. There is need of a sound body; and even 
more need of a sound mind. But above mind and above 
body stands character — the sum of those quahties which 
we mean when we speak of a man's force and courage, of 

5 his good faith and sense of honor. I beheve in exercise 
for the body, ahvays provided that we keep in mind that 
physical development is a means and not an end. I be- 
lieve, of course, in giving to all the people a good education. 
But the education must contain much besides book learn- 

loing in order to be really good. We must ever remember 
that no keenness and subtleness of intellect, no pohsh, 
no. cleverness, in any way makes up for the lack of the 
great solid qualities. Self-restraint, self-mastery, common 
sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility and 

15 yet of acting in conjunction with others, courage and 
resolution — these are the qualities which mark a master- 
ful people. Without them no people can control itself, 
or save itself from being controlled from the outside. I 
speak to a brilliant assemblage; I speak in a great univer- 

20sity which represents the flower of the highest intellect- 
ual development; I pay all homage to intellect, and to 
elaborate and specialized training of the intellect; and 
yet I know I shall have the assent of all you present when 
I add that more important still are the commonplace, 

25 everyday qualities and virtues. 

Such ordinary, everyday qualities include the will and 
the power to work, to fight at need and to have plenty 
of healthy children. The need that the average man 
shall work is so obvious as hardly to warrant insistence. 

30 There are a few persons in every country so born that they 
can lead lives of leisure. These fill a useful function if 
they make it evident that leisure does not mean idleness; 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 223 

for some of the most valuable work needed by civilization 
is essentially non-remunerative in its character, and of 
course the people who do this work should in large part 
be drawn from those to whom remuneration is an object 
of indifference. But the average man must earn his own 5 
livelihood. He should be trained to do so, and he should 
be trained to feel that he occupies a contemptible position 
if he does not do so — that he is not an object of en\y if 
he is idle, at whichever end of the social scale he stands, 
but an object of contempt, an object of derision. lo 

In the next place, the good man should be both a strong 
and brave man; that is, he should be able to fight, he 
should be able to ser\"e his country as a soldier should the 
need arise. There are well meaning philosophers who 
declaim against the unrighteousness of Avar. They are i5 
right only if they lay all their emphasis upon the unright- 
eousness. War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a 
crime against humanity. But it is such a crime because it 
is unjust, not because it is war. The choice must ever 
be in favor of righteousness, and this whether the alter- 20 
native be peace or whether the alternative be war. The 
question must not be merely, Is there to be peace or war? 
The question must be. Is the right to prevail? Are the 
great laws of righteousness once more to be fulfilled? And 
the answer from a strong and virile people must be ^^ Yes,^^ 25 
whatever the cost. Every honorable effort should always 
be made to avoid war, just as everj^ honorable effort 
should always be made by the individual in private life 
to keep out of a brawl, to keep out of trouble; but no 
self-respecting individual, no self-respecting nation, can 30 
or ought to submit to wrong. 

Finally, even more important than ability to work, even 



224 ROOSEVELT, S WRITINGS 

more important than ability to fight at need, is it to re- 
member that the chief of blessings for any nation is that 
it shall leave its seed to inherit the land. It was the crown 
of blessings in Bibhcal times and it is the crown of bless- 
5 ings now. The greatest of all curses is the curse of steril- 
ity, and the severest of all condemnations should be that 
visited upon wilful sterility. The first essential in any 
civilization is that the man and the woman shall be father 
and mother of healthy children, so that the race shall in- 
10 crease and not decrease. If this is not so, if through no 
fault of the society there is failure to increase, it is a great 
misfortune. If the failure is due to deliberate and wilful 
fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those 
cnmes of ease and self-indulgence,* of shrinking from pain 
15 and effort and risk, which in the long run Nature pun- 
ishes more heavily than any other. If we of the great 
repubhcs, if we, the free people who claim to have emanci- 
pated ourselves from the thraldom of wrong and error, 
bring down on our heads the curse that comes upon the 
20^\dlfully barren, then it will be an idle waste of breath to 
prattle of our achievements, to boast of all that we have 
done. No refinement of life, no delicacy of taste, no ma- 
terial progress, no sordid heaping up of riches, no sensuous 
development of art and literature, can in any way com- 
25pensate for the loss of the great fundamental virtues, 
and of these great fundamental virtues the greatest is 
the race's power to perpetuate the race. 

Character must show itself in the man's performance 

both of the duty he owes himself and of the duty he owes 

30 the state. The man's foremost duty is owed to himself 

and his family; and he can do this duty only by earning 

money, by providing what is essential to material well- 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 225 

being; it is only after this has been done that he can hope 
to build a higher superstructure on the solid material 
foundation; it is only after this has been done that he can 
help in movements for the general well-being. He must 
pull his own weight first, and only after this can his sur- 5 
plus strength be of use to the general public. It is not 
good to excite that bitter laughter which expresses con- 
tempt, and contempt is what we feel for the being whose 
enthusiasm to benefit mankind is such that he is a burden 
to those nearest him; who wishes to do great things for ic 
humanity in the abstract, but who cannot keep his wife 
in comfort or educate his children. 

Nevertheless, while laying all stress on this point, while 
not merely acknowledging but insisting upon the fact that 
there must be a basis of material well-being for the in- 15 
dividual, as for the nation, let us with equal emphasis 
insist that this material well-being represents nothing but 
the foundation, and that the foundation, though indis- 
pensable, is worthless unless upon it is raised the super- 
structure of a higher life. 20 

That is why I decline to recognize the mere multi- 
millionaire, the man of mere wealth, as an asset of value 
to any country, and especially as not an asset to my own 
country. If he has earned or uses his wealth in a way 
that makes him of real benefit, of real use — and such is 25 
often the case — why, then he does become an asset of 
worth. But it is the way in which it has been earned or 
used and not the mere fact of wealth that entitles him to 
the credit. There is need in business, as in most other 
forms of human activity, of the great guiding intelli-so 
gences. Their places cannot be supplied by any number 
of lesser intelligences. It is a good thing that they should 



226 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

have ample recognition, ample reward. But we must 
not transfer our admiration to the reward instead of to 
the deed rewarded; and if what should be the reward 
exists without the service having been rendered, then ad- 
5 miration will come only from those who are mean of soul. 
The truth is that after a certain measure of tangible 
material success or reward has been achieved the question 
of increasing ,it becomes of constantly less importance 
compared to other things that can be done in life. 'It is a 

10 bad tiling for a nation to raise and to admire a false stand- 
ard of success and there can be no falser standard than 
that set by the deification of material well-being in and 
for itself. The man who for any cause for which he is him- 
self accountable has failed to support himself and those 

15 for whom he is responsible ought to feel that he has fallen 
lamentably short in his prime duty. But the man who, 
having far surpassed the limit of providing for the wants, 
both of bod}^ and mind, of himself and of those depending 
upon him, then piles up a great fortune, for the acquisi- 

20tion or retention of which he returns no corresponding 
benefit to the nation as a whole, should himself be made 
to feel that, so far from being a desirable he is an unworthy 
citizen of the community, that he is to be neither admired 
nor envied, that his right thinking fellow countr^onen put 

25 him low in the scale of citizenship and leave him to be con- 
soled by the admiration of those whose level of purpose is 
even lower than his owti. 

My position as regards the moneyed interests can be 
put in a few words. In ever}^ civilized society property 

30 rights must be carefully safeguarded. Ordinarily, and in 
the great majority of cases, human rights and property 
rights are fundamentally, and in the long run, identi- 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 227 

cal; but when it clearly appears that there is a real con- 
flict between them, human rights must have the upper 
hand, for property belongs to man and not man to 
property. 

In fact, it is essential to good citizenship clearly to un- 3 
derstand that there are certain qualities which we in a 
democracy are prone to admire in and of themselves, 
which ought by rights to be judged admirable or the re- 
verse solely from the standpoint of the use made of them. 
Foremost among these I should include two very distinct lo 
gifts — the gift of money making and the gift of oratory. 
Money making, the money touch, I have spoken of above. 
It is a quality which in a moderate degree is essential. 
It may be useful when developed to a very great degree, 
but only if accompanied and controlled by other qual- 15 
ities; and without such control the possessor tends to de- 
velop into one of the least attractive types produced by 
a modem industrial democracy. So it is with the orator. 
It is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in a democ- 
racy should be able to state his views clearly and con- 20 
vincingly. But all that the oratory can do of value to the 
community is to enable the man thus to explain himself; 
if it enables the orator to persuade his hearers to put false 
values on things it merely makes him a power for mischief. 
Some excellent public servants have not the gift at all, 25 
and must rely upon their deeds to speak for them; and 
unless the oratory does represent genuine conviction, 
based on good common sense and able to be translated 
into efficient performance, then the better the oratory 
the greater the damage to the pubhc it deceives. Indeed, 30 
it is a sign of rharked political weakness in any common- 
wealth if the people tend to be carried away by mere 



228 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

oratory, if they tend to value words in and for themselves, 
as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to 
stand. The phrase maker, the phrase monger, the ready 
talker, however great his power, whose speech does not 

5 make for courage, sobriety and right understanding, is 
simply a noxious element in the body politic, and it speaks 
ill for the public if he has influence over them. To admire 
the gift of oratory without regard to the moral quality 
behind the gift is to do wrong to the republic. 

10 Of course, all that I can say of the orator applies with 
even greater force to the orator's latter-day and more 
influential brother, the journalist. The power of the 
journalist is great, but he is entitled neither to respect 
nor admiration because of that power unless it is used 

15 aright. He can do, and he often does, great good. He can 
do, and he often does, infinite mischief. All journaHsts, 
all writers, for the very reason that they appreciate the 
vast possibilities of their profession, should bear testimony 
against those who deeply discredit it. Offences against 

20 taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private citi- 
zen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for de- 
bauching the community through a newspaper. Mendac- 
ity, slander, sensationalism, inanit}^, vapid triviality, all 
are potent factors for the debaucher}^ of the public mind 

25 and conscience. The excuse advanced for vicious WTit- 
ing, that the public demands it and that the demand must 
be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were ad- 
vanced by the purveyors of food who sell poisonous adul- 
terations. 

30 In short, the good citizen in a republic must realize that 
he ought to possess two sets of qualities, and that neither 
avails without the other. He must have those qualities 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 229 

which make for efficiency; and he must also have those 
qualities which direct the efficiency into channels for the 
public good. He is useless if he is inefficient. There is 
nothing to be done with that type of citizen of whom all 
that can be said is that he is harmless. Virtue which is 5 
dependent upon a sluggish circulation is not impressive. 
There is little place in active life for the timid good man. 
The man who is saved by weakness from robust wicked- 
ness is likewise rendered immune from the robust er virtues. 
The good citizen in a republic must first of all be able to lo 
hold his own. He is no good citizen unless he has the 
ability which will make him work hard and which at need 
will make him fight hard. He is not a good citizen unless 
he is an efficient citizen. 

But if a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by is 
a moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he 
is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, in- 
tellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a 
man more evil if they are used merely for that man's own 
advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of 20 
others. It speaks ill for the community if the community 
worships these qualities and treats their possessors as 
heroes, regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly 
or wrongly. It makes no difference as to the precise way 
in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no 25 
difference whether such a man's force and ability betray 
themselves in the career of money maker or politician, 
soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. If the man 
works for evil, then the more successful he is the more he 
should be despised and condemned by all upright and 30 
farseeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an 
abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually so 



230 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because 
the wicked man triumphs, they show their inabiUty to 
understand that in the last analysis free institutions rest 
upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admi- 

5 ration of evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty. 
The homely virtues of the household, the ordinary 
workaday virtues which make the woman a good house- 
wife and house mother, which make the man a hard worker, 
a good husband and father, a good soldier at need, stand 

10 at the bottom of character. But of course many others 
must be added thereto if a state is to be not only free, but 
great. Good citizenship is not good citizenship if exhibited 
only in the home. There remain the duties of the indi- 
\ddual in relation to the state, and these duties are none too 

15 easy under the conditions which exist where the effort is 
made to carry on free government in a complex indus- 
trial civilization. Perhaps the most important thing the 
ordinary citizen, and, above all, the leader of ordinary 
citizens, has to remember in political life is that he must 

20 not be a sheer doctrinaire. The closest philosopher, the 
refined and cultured individual who from his library tells 
how men ought to be governed under ideal conditions, is 
of no use in actual governmental work; and the one-sided 
fanatic, and still more the mob leader, and the insincere 

25 man who to achieve power promises what by no possibil- 
ity can be performed, are not merely useless but noxious. 

The citizen must have high ideals, and jQi he must be 
able to achieve them in practical fashion. No permanent 
good comes from aspirations so lofty that they have grown 

30 fantastic and have become impossible and indeed un- 
desirable to realize. The impracticable visionary is far 
less often the guide and precursor than he is the embit- 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN • 231 

tered foe of the real reformer, of the man who, with stum- 
bhngs and shortcomings, yet does in some shape, in prac- 
tical fashion, give effect to the hopes and desires of those 
who strive for better things. Woe to the empty phrase- 
maker, to the empty ideahst, who, instead of makings 
ready the ground for the man of action, tm-ns against 
him when he appears and hampers him as he does the 
work! Moreover, the preacher of ideals must remember 
how sorry and contemptible is the figure which he will 
cut, how great the damage that he will do, if he does not lo 
himself, in his own life, strive measurably to realize the 
ideals that he preaches for others. Let him remember 
also that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined 
by the success with which it can in practice be realized. 
We should abhor the so-called ^'practical" men whose is 
practicality assumes the shape of that peculiar baseness 
which finds its expression in disbelief in morality and de- 
cenc3^, in disregard of high standards of living and con- 
duct. Such a creature is the worst enemy of the body 
politic. But only less desirable as a citizen is his nominal 20 
opponent and real ally, the man of fantastic vision who 
makes the impossible better forever the enemy of the pos- 
sible good. 

We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires 
of an extreme indi\ddualism as the doctrinaires of an ex- 25 
treme socialism. Individual initiative, so far from being 
discouraged, should be stimulated; and yet we should re- 
member that, as society develops and grows more com- 
plex, we continuall}^ find that things which once it was 
desirable to leave to individual initiative can, under the 30 
changed conditions, be performed with better results by 
common effort. It is quite impossible, and equally unde- 



232- ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

sirable, to draw in theory a hard and fast hne which shall 
always divide the two sets of cases. Thus every one who 
is not cursed with the pride of the closet philosopher will 
see, if he will only take the trouble to think about some of 
5 our commonest phenomena. For instance, when people 
live on isolated farms or in little hamlets, each house can 
be left to attend to its owm drainage and water supply; 
but the mere multiplication of families in a given area 
produces new problems which, because they differ in 

10 size, are found to differ not onl}^ in degree but in kind from 
the old; and the questions of drainage and water supply 
have to be considered from the common standpoint. It 
is not a matter for abstract dogmatizmg to decide when 
this point is reached; it is a matter to be tested by prac- 

15 tical experiment. Much of the cUscussion about socialism 
and indi\ddualism is entirely pointless, because of failm-e 
to agree on terminology. It is not good to be the slave 
of names. I am a strong individualist by personal habit, 
inheritance and con\dction; but it is a mere matter of 

20 common sense to recognize that the state, the commun- 
ity, the citizens acting together, can do a number of 
things better than if the^^ were left to individual action. 
The individualism which finds its expression in the abuse 
of physical force is checked very early in the growth of 

25 ci\ilization, and we of to-day should in our turn strive to 
shackle or destroy that individualism which triumphs by 
greed and cunning, which exploits the weak by craft in- 
stead of ruling them by brutality. We ought to go with 
any man in the effort to bring about justice and the equal- 

3oity of opportunity, to turn the tool user more and more 
into the tool o^vner, to shift burdens so that they can be 
more equitably borne. The deadening effect on any race 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 233 

of the adoption of a logical and extreme socialistic system 
could not be overstated; it would spell sheer destruction; 
it would produce grosser wrong and outrage, fouler im.- 
morality, than any existing system. But this does not 
mean that we may not with great advantage adopt certain 5 
of the principles professed by some given set of men who 
happen to call themselves socialists; to be afraid to do so 
would be to make a mark of weakness on our part. 

But we should not take part in acting a lie any more 
than in telling a lie. We should not say that men are lo 
equal where they are not equal, nor proceed upon the 
assumption that there is an equality where it does not 
exist; but we should strive to bring about a measurable 
equalit}^, at least to the extent of preventing the inequal- 
ity which is due to force or fraud. Abraham Lincoln,^ a is 
man of the plain people, blood of their blood and bone 
of their bone, who all his life toiled and wrought and suf- 
fered for them, and at the end died for them, who always 
strove to represent them, who would never tell an untruth 
to or for them, spoke of the doctrine of equality with his 20 
usual mixture of idealism and sound common sense. He 
said (I omit what was of merely local significance): "I 
think the authors of the Declaration of Independence 
intended to include all men, but that they did not mean 
to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not 25 
mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, 
moral development or social capacity. They defined with 
tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men 
created equal — equal in certain inalienable rights, among 
which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This 30 
they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to 
assert the obvious untruth that all v/ere then actually 



234 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

enjo5ang that equality, or yet that they were about to 
confer it immediately upon them. They meant to set up 
a standard maxim for free society which should be fa- 
mihar to all — constantly looked to, constantly' labored for, 

5 and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly ap- 
proximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deep- 
ening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and 
value of life to all people, everywhere.'' 

We are bound in honor to refuse to listen to those men 

10 who would make us desist from the effort to do away with 
the inequality which means injustice; the inequality of 
right, of opportunity, of privilege. We are bound in 
honor to strive to bring ever nearer the day when, as far 
as is humanly possible, we shall be able to realize the 

15 ideal that each man shall have an equal opportunity to 
show the stuff that is in him by the way in which he renders 
service. There should, so far as possible, be equality of 
opportunity to render service; but just so long as there is 
inequality of service there should and must be inequality 

20 of reward. We may be sorry for the general, the painter, 
the artist, the worker in any profession or of any kind, 
whose misfortune rather than whose fault it is that he 
does his work ill. But the reward must go to the man 
who does his work well; for any other course is to create a 

25 new kind of privilege, the privilege of folly and weakness; 
and special privilege is injustice, whatever form it takes. 

To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the in- 
capable ought to have the reward given to those who are 
farsighted, capable and upright is to say what is not true 

30 and cannot be true. Let us try to level up, but let us be- 
ware of the evil of leveling down. If a man stumbles, it 
is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 235 

needs a helping hand now and then. But if a man hes 
down, it is a waste of time to try to carry him; and it is a 
very bad thing for every one if we make men feel that the 
same reward will come to those who shirk their work and 
to those who do it. s 

Let us then take into account the actual facts of life, and 
not be misled into following any proposal for achieving 
the millennium, for recreating the golden age, until we 
have subjected it to hard-headed examination. On the 
other hand, it is foolish to reject a proposal merely be- lo 
cause it is advanced by visionaries. If a given scheme is 
proposed, look at it on its merits and in considering it 
disregard formulas. It does not matter in the least who 
proposes it or why. If it seems good, try it. If it proves 
good, accept it; otherwise reject it. There are plenty of is 
men calling themselves sociahsts with whom up to a cer- 
tain point it is quite possible to work. If the next step 
is one which both we and they wish to take, why of course 
take it, without regard to the fact that our views as to the 
tenth step may differ. But, on the other hand, keep clearly 20 
in mind that, though it has been worth while to take one 
step, this does not in the least mean that it may be highly 
disadvantageous to take the next. It is just as foolish 
to refuse all progress because people demanding it desire 
at some points to go to absurd extremes as it would be to is 
go to these absurd extremes simply because some of the • 
measures advocated by the extremists were wise. 

The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and, 
as a matter of pride, he will see to it that others receive the 
liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the 30 
best test of true love of liberty in an}^ country is the way 
in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only 



236 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and 
opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life 
as he desires, provided only that in so doing he does not 
wrong his neighbors. Persecution is bad because it is 
5 persecution, and without reference to which side happens 
at the moment to be the persecutor and which the perse- 
cuted. Class hatred is bad in just the same way, and 
without any regard to the indi\ddual who at a given time 
substitutes loyalty to a class for loyalty to the nation or 

10 substitutes hatred of men because they happen to come in 
a certain social category for judgment awarded them ac- 
cording to their conduct. Remember always that the 
same measure of condemnation should be extended to the 
arrogance which would look down upon or crush any man 

15 because he is poor and to the envy and hatred which would 
destroy a man because he is wealthy. The over-bearing 
brutality of the man of wealth or power and the envious 
and hateful malice directed against wealth or power are 
really at root merely different manifestations of the same 

20 quality, merely the two sides of the same shield. 

The man who, if born to wealth and power, exploits 
and ruins his less fortunate brethren is at heart the same 
as the greedy and violent demagog who excites those who 
have not property to plunder those who have. The 

25 gravest \\Tong upon his country is inflicted by that man, 
whatever his station, who seeks to make his countryTiien 
divide primarily on the line that separates class from class, 
occupation from occupation, men of more wealth from 
men of less wealth, instead of remembering that the only 

30 safe standard is that which judges each man on his worth 
as a man, whether he be rich or poor, without regard to 
his profession or to his station in life. Such is the only 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 237 

true democratic test, the only test that can with pro- 
priety be apphed in a republic. There have been many 
republics in the past, both in what we call antiquity and 
in what we call the Middle Ages. They fell, and the 
prime factor in their fall was the fact that the parties 5 
tended to di\dde along the line that separates wealth 
from poverty. It made no difference which side was 
successful, it made no difference whether the republic 
fell under the rule of an oligarchy or the rule of a mob. In 
either case, when once loyalty to a class had been sub- lo 
stituted for loyalty to the republic the end of the republic 
was at hand. There is no greater need to-day than the 
need to keep ever in mind the fact that the cleavage be- 
tween right and wrong, between good citizenship and bad 
citizenship, runs at right angles to, and not parallel with, 15 
the lines of cleavage between class and class, between 
occupation and occupation. Ruin looks us in the face 
if we judge a man by his position instead of judging him 
by his conduct in that position. 

In a republic to be successful we must learn to combine 20 
intensity of conviction with a broad tolerance of difference 
of conviction. Wide differences of opinion in matters 
of religious, political and social belief must exist if con- 
science and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there 
is to be room for healthy growth. Bitter internecine 25 
hatreds, based on such differences, are signs not of earnest- 
ness of belief but of that fanaticism which, whether 
religious or anti-religious, democratic or anti-democratic, 
is itself but a manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which 
has been the chief factor in the downifall of so many, 30 
many nations. 

Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens 



238 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who 
appeals to them to support him on the ground that he 
is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will 
secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another, 
5 profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It 
makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or 
class interest, to rehgious or anti-religious prejudice. The 
man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed 
to make it for the sake of furthering his o^vn interest. The 

10 very last thing that an intelligent and self-respecting 
member of a democratic community should do is to regard 
any public man because that public man says he will get 
the private citizen something to which this private citi- 
zen is not entitled, or will gratif}^ some emotion or animos- 

isity which this private citizen ought not to possess. Let 
me illustrate this by one anecdote from my own experience. 
A number of years ago I was engaged in cattle ranching 
on the great plains of the western United States. There 
were no fences. The cattle wandered free, the owner- 

20 ship of each being determined by the brand; the calves 
were branded with the brand of the cows they followed. 
If on the round-up an animal was passed by, the follow- 
ing year it would appear as an unbranded yearling, and 
was then called a maverick. By the custom of the coun- 

25 try these mavericks were branded with the brand of the 
man on whose range they were found. One day I was 
riding the range with a newly hired cowboy and we came 
upon a maverick. We roped and threw it, then we built a 
little fire, took out a cinch ring, heated it at the fire and 

30 the cowboy started to put on the brand. I said to him: 
^'It is So-and-so's brand,'' naming the man on whose 
range we happened to be. He answered: ^'That's all 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 239 

right, boss; I know my business/^ In another moment I 
said to him: '^Hold on; you are putting on my brand!'' 
To which he answered: ^^ That's all right; I always put 
on the boss's brand." I answered: ^^ Oh, very well. Now, 
you go straight back to the ranch and get what is owing 5 
to you; I don't need you an^^ longer." He jumped up 
and said: '^Why, what's the matter? I was putting on 
your brand." And I answered: ^^Yes, my friend, and if 
you will steal for me you will steal from me," 

Now, the same principle which applies in private life 10 
applies also in public life. If a public man tries to get 
your vote by saying that he will do something wrong in 
your interest, you can be absolutely certain that if ever 
it becomes worth his while he will do something WTong 
against your interest. 15 

So much for the citizenship of the individual in his 
relations to his famil}", to his neighbor, to the state. There 
remain duties of citizenship which the state, the aggrega- 
tion of all the individuals, owes in connection with other 
states, with other nations. Let me sa}^ at once that I am 20 
no advocate of a foolish cosmopolitanism. I believe that a 
man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the 
only possible way of being, a good citizen of the world. 
Experience teaches us that the average man who protests 
that his international feeling swamps his national feeling, 25 
that he does not care for his country because he cares so 
much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself the 
foe of mankind; that the man who says that he does not 
care to be a citizen of any one country because he is a 
citizen of the world, is in very fact usually an exceedingly 30 
undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the world he 
happens at the moment to be in. In the dim future all 



240 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

raoral needs and moral standards maj^ change; but at 

. present, if a man can view his own country and all other 
countries from the same level with tepid indifference, it is 
wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man 

5 who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife and 
his mother. However broad and deep a man's sympathies, 
however intense his activities, he need have no fear that 
they will be cramped by love of his native land. 

Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should 

10 not wish to do good outside of his native land. On the 
contrary, just as I think that the man who loves his family 
is more apt to be a good neighbor than the man who does 
not, so I think that the most useful member of the family 
of nations is normally a strong patriotic nation. So far 

15 from patriotism being inconsistent with proper regard for 
the rights of other nations, I hold that the true patriot, 
who is as jealous of the national honor as a gentle- 
man of his own honor, will be careful to see that the na- 
tion neither inflicts nor suffers wrong, just as a gentle- 

20 man scorns equally to \\Tong others or to suffer others to 
wrong him. I do not for one moment admit that political 
moralit}^ is different from private morality, that a promise 
made on the stump differs from a promise made in private 
life. I do not for one moment admit that a man should 

25 act deceitfully as a pubhc servant in his deahngs with 
other nations, any more than that he should act deceitfully 
in his dealings as a private citizen with other private citi- 
zens. I do not for one moment admit that a nation should 
treat other nations in a different spirit from that in which 

30 an honorable man would treat other men. 

In practically applying this principle to the two sets 
of cases there is, of course, a great practical difference to 



DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 241 

be taken into account. We speak of international law; 
but international law is something wholly different from 
private or municipal law, and the capital difference is 
that there is a sanction for the one and no sanction for 
the other; that there is an outside force which compels in- 5 
dividuals to obey the one, while there is no such outside 
force to compel obedience as regards the other. Inter- 
national law will, I believe, as the generations pass, grow 
stronger and stronger until in some way or other there 
develops the power to make it respected. But as yet 10 
it is only in the first formative period. As yet, as a rule, 
each nation is of necessity obliged to judge for itself in 
matters of vital importance between it and its neighbors 
and actions must of necessity, where this is the case, be 
different from what they are where, as among private 15 
citizens, there is an outside force whose action is all-power- 
ful and must be invoked in any crisis of importance. 

It is the duty of wise statesmen, gifted with the power 
of looking ahead, to try to encourage and build up every 
movement which will substitute or tend to substitute some 20 
other agency for force in the settlement of international 
disputes. It is the duty of every honest statesman to try 
to guide the nation so that it shall not wrong any other 
nation. But as yet the great civilized peoples, if they are 
to be true to themselves and to the cause of humanity and 25 
civilization, must keep ever in mind that in the last resort 
they must possess both the will and the power to resent 
wrongdoing from others. The men who sanely believe 
in a lofty morality preach righteousness; but they do not 
preach weakness, whether among private citizens or among 30 
nations. We believe that our ideals should be high, but 
not so high as to make it impossible measurably to realize 



242 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

them. We sincerely and earnestly believe in peace; but if 
peace and justice conflict, we scorn the man who would 
not stand for justice, though the whole world came in 
arms against him. 
5 And now, my hosts, a word in parting. You and I 
belong to the only two republics among the great Powers 
of the world. The ancient friendship between France 
and the United States has been, on the whole, a sincere 
and disinterested friendship. A calamity to you would 

10 be a sorrow to us. But it would be more than that. In 
the seething turmoil of the history of humanity certain 
nations stand out as possessing a peculiar power or charm, 
some special gift of beauty or wisdom or strength, which 
puts them among the immortals, which makes them rank 

15 forever with the leaders of mankind. France is one of 
these nations. For her to sink would be a loss to all the 
world. There are certain lessons of brilliance and of 
generous gallantry that she can teach better than any of 
her sister nations. When the French peasantry sang of 

2oMalbrook,° it was to tell how the soul of this warrior foe 
took flight upward through the laurels he had won. Nearly 
seven centuries ago Froissart, writing of a time of dire 
disaster, said that Ihe realm of France was never so stricken 
that there were not left men who would valiantly fight 

25 for it. You have had a great past. I believe that you 
will have a -great future. Long may you carry your- 
selves proudly as citizens of a nation which bears a lead- 
ing part in the teaching and uplifting of mankind! 



LAST WORDS ON AMERICANISM 

I CANNOT be with you, and so all I can do is to wish 
you Godspeed. There must be no sagging back in the 
fight for Americanism merely because the war is over. 
There are plenty of persons who have already made the 
assertion that they believe the American people have as 
short memory, and that they intend to revive all the for- 
eign associations which most directly interfere, with the 
complete Americanization of our people. 

Our principle in this matter should be absolutely 
simple. In the first place we should insist that if the im- lo 
migrant who comes here does in good faith become, an 
American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated 
on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage 
to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or 
birthplace, or origin. is 

But this is predicted upon the man's becoming in very 
fact an American and nothing but an American. If he 
tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and 
separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing 
his part as an American. 20 

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man 
who says he is an American but something else also isn't 
an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the 
American flag, and this excludes the red flag, wliich sym- 
bolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as2S 
much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which 
we are hostile. 

We have room for but one language here and that is 
the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible 

243 



244 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

turns our people out as Americans, of American nation- 
ality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; 
and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is 
loyalty to the American people. 



NATURAL mSTORY 



MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST ^ 

I AM asked to give an account of my interest in natural 
history, and my experience as an amateur naturalist. The 
former has always been very real; and the latter, un- 
fortunately, very limited. 

I don^t suppose that most men can tell why their minds 5 
are attracted to certain studies any more than why their 
tastes are attracted by certain fruits. Certainly, I can 
no more explain why I like ^^ natural history^' than why 
I like California canned peaches; nor why I do not care 
for that enormous brand of natural history which deals lo 
with invertebrates any more than why I do not care for 
brandied peaches. All I can say is that almost as soon 
as I began to read at all I began to Hke to read about the 
natural history of beasts and birds and the more formid- 
able or interesting reptiles and fishes. 15 

The fact that I speak of ^^ natural history'^ instead of 
''biology,'^ and use the former expression in a restricted 
sense, will show that I am a belated member of the gen- 
eration that regarded Audubon^ with veneration, that 
accepted Waterton° — Audubon^s violent critic — as the 20 
ideal of the wandering naturalist, and that looked upon 
Brehm^ as a delightful but rather awesomely erudite 
example of advanced scientific thought. In the broader 
field, thank Heaven, I sat at the feet of Darwin° and 
Huxley,° and studied the large volumes in which Marsh^s° 25 
and Leidy's° palseontological studies were embalmed, with 
a devotion that was usually attended by a dreary lack 

1 Reprinted by permission from the American Museum 
Journal, vol. xviii, p. 321 (May, 1918.) 

247 



248 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

of reward — what would I not have given fifty years ago 
for a writer Hke Henry Fairfield Osborn,° for some scien- 
tist who realized that intelligent laymen need a guide 
capable of building before their eyes the life that was, in- 

5 stead of merely cataloguing the fragments of the death 
that is. 

I was a very nearsighted small boy, and did not even 
know that my eyes were not normal until I was fourteen; 
and so my field studies up to that period were even more 

10 worthless than those of the average boy who '^ collects'' 
natural history specimens much as he collects stamps. I 
studied books industriously but nature only so far as could 
be compassed by a molelike vision; my triumphs con- 
sisted in such things as bringing home and raising — by the 

15 aid of milk and a syringe — a family of very young gray 
squirrels, in fruitlessly endeavoring to tame an excessively 
unamiable woodchuck, and in making friends with a 
gentle, pretty, trustful white-footed mouse which reared 
her family in an empty flower pot. In order to attract 

20 my attention birds had to be as conspicuous as bobolinks 
or else had to perform feats such as I remember the barn 
swallows of my neighborhood once performed, when they 
assembled for the migration alongside our house and be- 
cause of some freak of bewilderment swarmed in through 

25 the windows and clung helplessly to the curtains, the 
furniture, and even to our clothes. 

Just before my fourteenth birthday my father — then a 
trustee of the American Museum of Natural History — 
started me on my rather mothlike career as a naturalist 

30 by giving me a pair of spectacles, a French pin-fire double- 
barreled shotgun — and lessons in stuffing birds. The 
spectacles literally opened a new world lo me. The 



MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 249 

mechanism of the pin-fire gun was without springs and 
therefore could not get out of order — an important point, 
as my mechanical ability was nil. The lessons in stuff- 
ing and mounting birds were given me by Mr. John G. 
Bell, a professional taxidermist and collector who had 5 
accompanied Audubon on his trip to the *'Far West/^ 
Mr. Bell was a very interesting man, an American of the 
before-the-war type. He was tall, straight as an Indian, 
with white hair and smooth-shaven clear-cut face; a 
dignified figure, always in a black frock coat. He had lo 
no scientific knowledge of birds or mammals; his interest 
lay merely in collecting and preparing them. He taught 
me as much as my limitations would allow of the art of pre- 
paring specimens for scientific use and of mounting them. 
Some examples of my wooden methods of mounting birds 15 
are now in the American Museum: three different species 
of Egyptian plover, a snoA\y owl, and a couple of spruce 
grouse mounted on a shield with a passenger pigeon — the 
three latter killed in Maine during my college vacations. 

With my spectacles, my pin-fire gun, and my clumsy 20 
industry in skinning ^^ specimens,^' I passed the winter 
of 72-75 in Egypt and Palestine, being then fourteen 
years old. My collections showed nothing but enthusiasm 
on my part. I got no bird of any unusual scientific value. 
My observations were as valueless as my collections 25 
save on just one small point; and this point is of interest 
only as showing, not my own power of observation, but 
the ability of good men to fail to observe or record the 
seemingly self-evident. 

On the Nile the only book dealing with Egyptian birds 30 
which I had with me was one by an English clergyman, 
a Mr. Smith, who at the end of his second volume gave 



250 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

a short list of the species he had shot, with some comments 
on their habits but without descriptions. On my way 
home through Europe I secured a good book of Egyp- 
tian ornithology by a Captain Shelley. Both books enu- 

smerated and commented on several species of chats — the 
Old World chats, of course, which have nothing in common 
with our queer warbler of the same name. Two of these 
chats were common along the edges of the desert. One 
species was a boldly pied black and white bird, the other 

10 was colored above much like the desert sand, so that when 
it crouched it was hard to see. I found that the strikingly 
conspicuous chat never tried to hide, was very much on 
the alert, and was sure to attract attention when a long 
way oft; whereas the chat whose upper color harmonized 

15 with its surroundings usually sought to escape observation 
by crouching motionless. These facts were obvious even 
to a dull-sighted, not particularly observant boy; they 
were essential features in the comparison between and in 
the study of the life histories of the two birds. Yet neither 

20 of the two books in my possession so much as hinted at 
them. 

I think it was my observation of these, and a few sim- 
ilar facts, Avhich prevented my yielding to the craze that 
fifteen or twenty years ago became an obsession with 

25 certain other^vise good men — the belief that all animals 
were protectively colored when in their natural surround- 
ings. That this simply wasn^t true was shown by a mo- 
ment's thought of these two chats; no rational man could 
doubt that one was revealingly and the other conceal- 

aoingly colored; and each was an example of what was true 
in thousands of other cases. Moreover, the incident 
showed the only, and very mild, merit which I ever de- 



MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 251 

veloped as a "faunal naturalist.'^ I never grew to have 
keen powers of observation. But whatever I did see I saw 
truly, and I was fairly apt to understand what it meant. 
In other w^ords, I saw what was sufficiently obvious, and 
in such case did not usually misinterpret what I had seen. 5 
Certainly this does not entitle me to any particular credit, 
but the outstanding thing is that it does entitle me to some, 
even although of a negative kind; for the great majority 
of observers seem quite unable to see, to record, or to un- 
derstand facts so obvious that they leap to the eye. My lo 
two ornithologists offered a case in point as regards the 
chats ; and I shall shortly speak of one or two other cases, 
as, for example, the cougar and the saddle-backed lechwi. 

After returning to this country and until I was halfway 
through college, I continued to observe and collect in the is 
fashion of the ordinary boy who is interested in natural 
history. I made copious and valueless notes. As I said 
above, I did not see and observe very keenly; later it in- 
terested and rather chagrined me to find out how much 
more C. Hart Merriam° and John Burroughs'^ saw when 20 
I went out with them near Washington or in the Yellow- 
stone Park; or how much more George K. Cherrie° and 
Leo E. Miller° and Edmund Heller° and Edgar A. Mearns° 
and my own son Kermit saw in Africa and South Amer- 
ica, on the trips I took to the Nyanza lakes and across the 25 
Brazilian hinterland. 

During the years when as a boy I ^^ collected specimens'' 
at Oyster Bay or in the north woods, my contributions to 
original research were of minimum worth — they were hm- 
ited to occasional records of such birds as the dominicaao 
warbler at Oyster Bay, or to seeing a duck hawk work 
havoc in a loose gang of night herons, or to noting the 



252 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

bloodthirsty conduct of a captive mole shrew — I think I 
sent an account of the last incident to C. Hart Merriam. 
I occasionally sent to some small ornithological publica- 
tion a local list of Adirondack birds or something of the 

5 sort; and then proudly kept reprinted copies of the list on 
my desk until they grew dog-eared and then disappeared. 
I lived in a region zoologically so well kno^Ti that the 
obvious facts had all been set forth already, and as I lacked 
the power to find out the things that were not obvious, my 

10 work merely paralleled the similar work of hundreds of other 
young collectors who had a very good time but who made 
no particular addition to the sum of human knowledge. 

Among ni}^ boy friends who cared for ornithology was a 
fine and manly young fellow, Fred Osborn, the brother of 

15 Henry Fairfield Osborn. He was drowned, in his g-allant 
youth, forty jeavs ago; but he comes as vividly before my 
eyes now as if he were still alive. One cold and snowj'' 
winter I spent a day with him at his father's house at 
Garrison-on- the-Hudson. Numerous northern birds, 

20 which in our eyes were notable rarities, had come down 
with the hard weather, I spied a flock of crossbills in a 
pine, fired, and excitedly rushed forv/ard. A twig caught 
my spectacles and snapped them I knew not where. But 
dim though my vision was, I could still make out the red 

25 birds lying on the snow; and to me they were treasures of 
such importance that I abandoned all thought of my 
glasses and began a nearsighted hunt for my quarry. By 
the time I had picked up the last crossbill I found that I 
had lost all trace of my glasses; my day's sport — or scien- 

30tific endeavor, whatever you choose to call it — came to 
an abrupt end; and as a result of the lesson I never again 
in my life went out shooting, whether after sparrows or 



MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 253 

elephants, without a spare pair of spectacles in my pocket. 
After some ranch experiences I had my spectacle cases 
made of steel; and it was one of these steel spectacle cases 
which saved my life in after years when a man shot into 
me in Milwaukee.® 5' 

While in Harvard I was among those who joined in form- 
ing the Nuttall Club, which I believe afterward became 
one of the parent sources of the American Ornithologists' 
Union, 

The Harvard of that day was passing through a phase of 10 
biological study which was shaped by the belief that Ger- 
man university methods were the only ones worthy of 
copy, and also by the proper admiration for the younger 
Agassiz,° whose interest was mainly in the lower forms of 
marine hfe. Accordingly it was the accepted doctrine 15 
that a biologist — the word ^^ naturalist was eschewed as 
archaic — was to work toward the ideal of becoming a 
section cutter of tissue, who spent his time studying this 
tissue, and low marine organisms, under the microscope. 
Such work was excellent; but it covered a very small part 20 
of the biological field; and not only was there no encour- 
agement for the work of the field naturalist, the faunal 
naturalist, but this work was positively discouraged, and 
was treated as of negligible value. The effect of this atti- 
tude, common at that time to all our colleges, was detri-25 
mental to one very important side of natural history re- 
search. The admirable work of the microscopist had no 
attraction for me, nor was I fitted for it ; I grew even more 
interested in other forms of work than in the work of a 
faunal naturalist; and I abandoned all thought of making 30 
the study of my science my life interest. 

But I never lost a real interest in natural history; and 



254 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

I very keenly regret that at certain times I did not dis- 
play this interest in more practical fashion. Thus, for 
the dozen years beginning with 1883, I spent much of my 
time on the Little Missouri, where big game was then 

5 plentiful. Most big game hunters never learn anything 
about the game except how to kill it; and most natural- 
ists never observ^e it at all. Therefore a large amount of 
important and rather ob\dous facts remains unobserved 
or inaccurateb/ observed until the species becomes ex- 

10 tinct. What is most needed is not the ability to see what 
very few people can see, but to see what almost anybody 
can see, but nobody takes the trouble to look at. But 
I vaguely supposed that the obvious facts were known; 
and I let most of the opportunities pass by. Even so, 

15 many of my observations on the life histories of the big- 
horns, white goats, prongbucks, deer, and wapiti, and 
occasional observations on some of the other beasts, such 
as black-footed ferrets, were of value; indeed as regards 
some of the big game beasts, the accounts in^^ Hunting 

20 Trips of a Ranchman/^ ^^ Ranch Life and the Hunting 
Trial," and " The Wilderness Hunter " gave a good 
deal of information which, as far as I know, is not to be 
found elsewhere. 

To illustrate what I mean as '^ obvious^' facts which 

25 nevertheless are of real value I shall instance the cougar. 
In the winter of 1910 I made a cougar hunt with hounds, 
spending about five weeks in the mountains of northwest- 
ern Colorado. At that time the cougar had been seem- 
ingly well known to hunters, settlers, naturalists, and 

30 novelists for more than a century; and yet it was actually 
impossible to get trustworthy testimony on such elemen- 
tary points as, for instance, whether the male and female 



MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 255 

mated permanently, or at least until the young were 
reared (like foxes and wolves), and whether the animal 
caught its prey by rambling and stalking or, as was 
frequently asserted, by lying in wait on the branches 
of a tree. The facts I saw and observed during our five 5 
weeks' hunt in the snow were obvious; they needed only 
the simplest powers of observation and of deduction from 
observation. But nobody had hitherto shown or exercised 
these simple powers! My narrative in the volume ^'Out- 
door Pastimes of an American Hunter " gave the first 10 
reasonably full and trustworthy life history of the cougar 
as regards its most essential details — for Merriam's capi- 
tal Adirondack study had dealt with the species when it 
was too near the vanishing point and therefore when the 
conditions were too abnormal for some of these essential 15 
details to be observed. 

In South America I made observations of a certain 
value on some of the strange creatures we met, and these 
are to be found in the volume '^Through the Brazilian 
Wilderness; '' but the trip was primarily one of explora-20 
tion. In Africa, however, we really did some good work in 
natural history. Many of my observations were set forth 
in my book '^African Game Trails; '' and I have always felt 
that the book which Edmund Heller and I jointly wrote, the 
'' Life Histories of African Game Animals,'' was a serious 25 
and worth-while contribution to science. Here again, 
this contribution, so far as I was concerned, consisted 
chiefly in seeing, recording, and interpreting facts which 
were really obvious, but to which observers hitherto had 
been bhnd, or which they had misinterpreted partly be- 30 
cause sportsmen seemed incapable of seeing anything 
except as a trophy, partly because stay-at-home system- 



256 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

atists never saw anything at all except skins and skulls 
which enabled them to give Latin names to new ''species^' 
or ^^ subspecies/^ partly because collectors had collected 
birds and beasts in precisel}^ the spirit in which other 
5 collectors assembled postage stamps. 

I shall give a few instances. In mid-Africa we came 
across a peculiar bat, with a greenish body and slate 
blue wings. Specimens of this bat had often been col- 
lected. But I could find no record of its really interesting 
10 habits. It was not nocturnal; it was hardly even crepus- 
cular. It hung from the twigs of trees during the day and 
its activities began rather early in the afternoon. It did 
not fly continuously in swallow fashion, according to the 
usual bat custom. It behaved like a phoebe or other fly- 
is catcher. It hung from a twig until it saw an insect, then 
swooped down, caught the insect, and at once returned 
to the same or another twig — just as a phoebe or peewee 
or kingbird returns to its perch after a similar flight. 

On the White Nile I hunted a kind of handsome river 

20 antelope, the white-withered or saddle-backed lechwi. 

It had been known for fifty years to trophy-seeking 

sportsmen, and to closet naturalists, some of whom had 

called it a kob and others a water buck. Its nearest 

kinsman was in reality the ordinary lechwi, which dwelt 

25 far off to the south, along the Zambezi. But during that 

half century no hunter or closet naturalist had grasped 

this obvious fact. I had never seen the Zambezi lechwi, 

but I had carefully read the account of its habits by 

Selous° — a real hunter-naturalist, faunal naturalist. As 

30 soon as I came across the White Nile river bucks, and 

observed their habits, I said to my companions that they 

were undoubtedly lechwis: I wrote this to Selous,° and 



MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 257 

to another English hunter-naturalist, Migand; and even 
a slight examination of the heads and skins when compared 
with those of the other lechwi and of the kobs and water 
bucks proved that I was right. 

A larger, but equally obvious group of facts was that s 
connected with concealing and revealing coloratioli. As 
eminent a naturalist as Wallace,^ and innumerable men 
of less note, had indulged in every conceivable vagary 
of speculative theory on the subject, largely based on 
supposed correlation between the habits and the shape lo 
or color patterns of big animals which, as a matter of fact, 
they had never seen in a state of nature. While in Africa 
I studied the question in the field, observing countless 
individuals of big beasts and birds, and comparing the 
results with what I had observed of the big game and the 15 
birds of North America (the result being borne out by 
what I later observed in South America) . In a special chap- 
ter of the ^' Life Histories of African Game Animals,'' as 
well as in a special number of the ^'American Museum 
Bulletin,'^ I set forth the facts thus observed and the con- 20 
elusions inevitably to be deduced from them. All that I 
thus set forth, and all the conclusions I deduced, belonged 
to the obvious; but that there was need of thus setting 
forth the obvious was sufficiently shown by the simple 25 
fact that large numbers of persons refused to accept it 
even when set forth. 

I do not think there is much else for me to say about 
my anything but important work as a naturalist. But 
perhaps I may say further that while my interest in nat- 
ural history had added very little to my sum of achieve- 30 
ment, it has added immeasurably to my sum of enjoyment 
in life. 



NATURE FAKERS 

In the Middle Ages there was no hard-and-fast line 
drawn between fact and fiction even in ordinary history; 
and until much later there was not even an effort to draw 
it in natural history. There are quaint little books on 
5 beasts, in German and in English, as late as the six- 
teenth century, in which the unicorn° and the basilisk^ 
appear as real creatures; while to more commonplace 
animals there are ascribed traits and habits of such ex- 
ceeding marvelousness that they ought to make the souls 
10 of the ^^ nature fakers^' of these degenerate days swell 
with envious admiration. 

As real outdoor naturalists, real observers of nature, 
grew up, men who went into the wilderness to find out 
the truth, they naturally felt a half-indignant and half- 
is amused contempt both for the men Avho invented pre- 
posterous fiction about "wild animals, and for the credulous 
stay-at-home people w^ho accepted such fiction as fact. A 
century and a half ago old Samuel Hearne,® the Hudson 
Bay explorer, a keen and trustAvorthy observer, while 
20 writing of the beaver, spoke as follows of the spiritual 
predecessors of certain modern writers : 

"I cannot refrain from smiling w^hen I read the accounts 
of different authors wiio have ^vritten on the economy of 
these animals, as there seems to be a contest between them 
25 who shall most exceed in fiction. But the compiler of the 
* Wonders of Nature and Art' seems, in my opinion, to 
have succeeded best in this respect; as he has not only 
collected all the fictions into which other writers on the 
subject have run, but has so greatly improved on them, 

258 



NATURE FAKERS 259 

that little remains to be added to his account of the beaver 
besides a vocabulary of their language, a code of their 
laws, and a sketch of their religion, to make it the most 
complete natural history of that animal which can possibly 
be offered to the public. 5 

"There cannot be a greater imposition, or indeed a 
grosser insult on common understanding, than the wish 
to make us believe the stories [in question] ... a very 
moderate share of understanding is surely sufficient to 
guard [any one] against giving credit to such marv^elous lo 
tales, however smoothly they may be told, or however 
boldly they may be asserted by the romancing traveler." 

Heame was himself a man who added greatly to the 
fund of knowledge about the beasts of the wilderness. We 
need such observers; much remains to be told about the is 
w^olf and the bear, the lynx and the fisher, the moose and 
the caribou. Undoubtedly wild creatures sometimes show 
very unexpected traits, and individuals among them some- 
times perform fairly startling feats or exhibit totally 
unlooked-for sides of their characters in their relations 20 
with one another and \\dth man. We much need a full 
study and observation of all these animals, undertaken 
by observers capable of seeing, understanding, and record- 
ing what goes on in the wilderness; and such study and 
observation cannot be made by men of dull mind and 25 
limited power of appreciation. The highest type of stu- 
dent of nature should be able to see keenly and writer inter- 
estingly and should have an imagination that will enable 
him to interpret the facts. But he is not a student of 
nature at all who sees not keenly but falsely, who writes 30 
interestingly and untruthfully, and whose imagination is 
used not to interpret facts but to invent them. 



2G0 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

We owe a real debt to the men who truthfully portray 
for us, with pen or pencil, any one of the many sides of 
outdoor life; whether they work as artists or as writers, 
whether they care for big beasts or small birds, for the 

5 homely farmland or for the vast, lonely wilderness, 
whether they are scientists proper, or hunters of game, 
or lovers of all nature — which, indeed, scientists and 
hunters ought also to be. John Burroughs and John Muir, 
Stewart Edward White, and Frederic Remington, Ohve 

loThorne Miller,° Hart Merriam, William Hornaday, 
Frank Chapman, J. A. Allen, ° Ernest Ingersoll, Witmer 
Stone, William Cram, George Shiras — to all of these and 
to many like them whom I could name, we owe much, 
we who love the breath of the woods and the fields, and 

15 who care for the wild creatures, large or small. And the 
surest way to neutralize the work of these lovers of truth 
and nature, of truth in nature-study, is to encourage those 
w^hose work shows neither knowledge of nature nor love 
of truth. 

20 The modern ^^ nature faker ^' is of course an object of 
derision to every scientist worthy of the name, to every 
real lover of the wilderness, to every faunal naturalist, 
to every true hunter or nature lover. But it is evident 
that he completely deceives many good people who are 

25 wholly ignorant of wild life. Sometimes he draws on his 
own imagination for his fictions; sometimes he gets them 
second-hand from irresponsible guides or trappers or 
Indians. 

In the wilderness, as elsewhere, there are some persons 

30w"ho do not regard the truth; and these are the very 
persons who most delight to fill credulous strangers with 
impossible stories of wild beasts. As for Indians, they live 



NATURE FAKERa 261 

in a world of mysticism, and they often ascribe super- 
natural traits to the animals they know, just as the men 
of the Middle Ages, with almost the same childlike faith, 
credited the marvels told of the unicorn, the basilisk, the 
roc,° and the cockatrice.^ .... 5 

It would take a volume merely to catalogue the comic 
absurdities with which the books of these writers are filled. 
There is no need of discussing their theories; the point is 
that their alleged ^^ facts'^ are not facts at all, but fancies. 
Their most striking stories are not merely distortions of lo 
facts, but pure inventions; and not only are they inven- 
tions, but they are inventions by men who know so little of 
the subject concerning which they write, and who to igno- 
rance add such utter recklessness, that they are not even 
able to distinguish between what is possible, however 15 
wildly improbable, and mechanical impossibilities. Be it 
remembered that I am not speaking of ordinary mistakes, 
of ordinary errors of observation, of differences of inter- 
pretation and opinion; I am dealing only with deliberate 
invention, deliberate perversion of fact. 20 

Now all this would be, if not entirely proper, at least 
far less objectionable, if the writers in question were con- 
tent to appear in their proper garb, as is the case with the 
men who WTite fantastic fiction about wild animals for 
the Sunday issues of various daily newspapers. Moreover, 25 
as a writer of spirited animal fables, avowed to be such, any 
man can gain a distinct place of some importance. But 
it is astonishing that such very self-evident fiction as 
that which I am now discussing should, when advertised 
as fact, impose upon any person of good sense, no matter 30 
how ignorant of natural history and of wild life.* Most 
of us have enjoyed novels hke ^^King Solomon's Mines,'' ° 



262 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

for instance. But if Mr. Rider Haggard^ had insisted that 
his novels were not novels but records of actual fact, we 
should feel a mild wonder at the worthy persons who 
accepted them as serious contributions to the study of 

5 African geography and ethnology. 

It is not probable that the writers in question have even 
so much as seen some of the animals which they minutely 
describe. They certainly do not know the first thing 
about their habits, nor even about their physical structure. 

10 Judging from the internal evidence of their books, I 
should gravely doubt if they had ever seen a wild wolf 
or a wild lynx. The wolves and lynxes and other animals 
which they describe are full brothers of the wild beasts 
that appear in ^' Uncle Remus ^^ ° and ^^ Reynard the 

15 Fox,'^ ° and deserve the same serious consideration from 
the zoological standpoint. Certain of their wolves appear 
as gifted with all the philosophy, the self-restraint, and 
the keen intelligence of, say, Marcus Aurelius,° together 
with the lofty philanthropy of a modern altruist; though 

20 unfortunately they are hampered by a wholly erroneous 
view of caribou anatomy. 

Like the White Queen° in ^^ Through the Looking- 
Glass, ^' these writers can easily believe three impossible 
things before breakfast; and they do not mind in the least 

25 if the impossibilities are mutually contradictor^^ Tlius, 
one story relates how a wolf with one bite reaches the 
heart of a bull caribou, or a moose, or a horse — a feat 
which, of course, has been mechanically impossible of per- 
formance by any land carnivore since the death of the 

30 last saber-toothed tiger. But the next story will cheer- 
fully describe a doubtful contest between the wolf and a 
lynx or a bulldog, in which the latter survives twenty 



NATURE FAKERS 263 

slashing bites. Now of course a wolf that could bite into 
the heart of a horse would swallow a bulldog or a lynx like 
a pill. 

In one story, a wolf is portrayed as guiding home some 
lost children, in a spirit of thoughtful kindness; let the 5 
overtrustful individual who has girded up his loins to be- 
lieve this think of the way he would receive the statement 
of some small farmer's boy that when lost he was guided 
home by a coon, a possum, or a woodchuck. Again, one 
of these story-book wolves, when starving, catches a red lo 
squirrel, which he takes round as a present to propitiate a 
bigger wolf. If any man seriously thinks a starving wolf 
would act in this manner, let him study hounds when feed- 
ing, even when they are not star^dng. 

The animals are alternately portrayed as actuated by is 
motives of exalted humanitarianism, and as possessed of 
demoniac prowess and insight into motive. In one story 
the fisher figures in the latter capacity. A fisher is a big 
marten, the size of a fox. This particular story-book 
fisher, when pursued by hunters on snow-shoes, kills a buck 20 
by a bite in the throat, and leaves the carcass as a bribe 
to the hunters, hoping thereby to distract attention from 
himself! Now, foxes are continually hunted; they are far 
more clever than fishers. What rational man would pay 
heed to a story that a fox when hunted killed a good-sized 25 
calf by a bite in the throat, and left it as a bribe to the 
hounds and hunters, to persuade them to leave him alone? 
One story is just as possible as the other. 

In another story, the salmon is the hero. The writer 
begins by blunders about the young salmon which a ten 30 
minutes' visit to any government fish hatchery would 
have enabled him to avoid; and as a climax, describes how 



264 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

the salmon goes up a fall by flopping from ledge to ledge 
of a cliff, under circumstances which make the feat about 
as probable as that the fish would use a stepladder. As 
soon as these writers get into the wilderness, they develop 
5 preternatural powers of obsei^ation, and, as Mr. Shiras 
says, become themselves '^invisible and odorless,'^ so that 
the shyest wild creatures permit any closeness of intimacy 
on their part; in one recent story about a beaver colony, 
the alternative to the above proposition is that the beavers 

10 were both blind and without sense of smell. 

Yet these same writers, who see such marvelous things 
as soon as they go into the woods, are incapable of ob- 
serving aright the most ordinary facts when at home. One 
of their stories relates how the eyes of frogs shine at night 

15 in the wilderness; the author apparently ignoring the fact 
that frog-ponds are common in less remote places, and are 
not inhabited by blazing-eyed frogs. Two of our most 
common and most readil}^ observed small mammals are 
the red squirrel and the chipmunk. The chipmunk has 

20 cheek pouches, in which he stores berries, grain, and small 
nuts, whereas the red squirrel has no cheek pouches, and 
carries nuts betw^een his teeth. Yet even this simple 
fact escapes the attention of one of the writers we are dis- 
cussing, who endows a red squirrel with cheek pouches 

25 filled with nuts. Evidently excessive indulgence in inven- 
tion tends to atrophy the power of accurate observation. 
In one story a woodcock is described as making a kind 
of mud splint for its broken leg; it seems a pity not to 
have added that it also made itself a crutch to use while 

30 the splint was on. A Baltimore oriole is described as mak- 
ing a contrivance of twigs and strings whereby to attach 
its nest, under circumstances which would imply the men- 



NATURE FAKERS 265 

tal ability and physical address of a sailor making a ham- 
mock; and the story is backed up by affidavits, as are 
others of these stories. This particular feat is precisely as 
possible as that a Rocky Mountain pack rat can throw 
the diamond hitch. The affidavits in support of theses 
various stories are interesting only b>ecause of the curious 
light they throw on the personalities of those making and 
believing them. 

If the writers who make such startHng discoveries in 
the wilderness would really study even the denizens of a lo 
barnyard, they would be saved from at least some of their 
more sahent mistakes. Their stories dwell much on the 
'teaching ^^ of the young animals by their elders and 
betters. In one story, for instance, a wild duck is de- 
scribed as ^ teaching'' her young how to swim and get 15 
their food. If this writer had strolled into the nearest 
barnyard containing a hen which had hatched out duck- 
lings, a glance at the actions of those ducklings when the 
hen happened to lead them near a puddle would have en- 
lightened him as to how much ^Heaching^' they needed. 20 
But these writers exercise the same florid imagination 
when they deal with a robin or a rabbit as when they de- 
scribe a bear, a moose, or a salmon. 

It is half amusing and half exasperating to think that 
there should be excellent persons to whom it is necessary 25 
to explain that books stuffed with such stories, in which 
the stories are stated as facts, are preposterous in their 
worthlessness. These worthy persons vi\adly call to mind 
Professor Lounsbury's comment on ^'the infinite capacity 
of the human brain to withstand the introduction of 30 
knowledge." The books in question contain no statement 
which a serious and truth-loving student of nature can 



266 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

accept, save statements which have already long been 
known as established by trustworthy writers. The fables 
they contain bear the same relation to real natural history 
that Barnum^s^ famous artificial mermaid bore to real 

5 fish and real mammals. No man who has really studied 
nature in a spirit of seeking the truth, whether he be big 
or little, can have any controversy with these writers; 
it would be as absurd as to expect some genuine student 
of anthropology or archeology to enter into a controversy 

10 with the clumsy fabricators of the Cardiff Giant. ° Their 
books carry their own refutation; and affidavits in sup- 
port of the statements they contain are as worthless as 
the similar affidavits once solemnly issued to show that 
the Cardiff ^^gianf was a petrified pre- Adamite man. 

15 There is now no more excuse for being deceived by their 
stories than for being still in doubt about the silly Car- 
diff hoax. 

Men of this stamp will necessarily arise, from time to 
time, some in one walk of life, some in another. Our 

20 quarrel is not with these men, but with those who give 
them their chance. We who believe in the study of na- 
ture feel that a real knowledge and appreciation of wild 
things, of trees, flowers, birds, and of the grim and crafty 
creatures of the wilderness, give an added beauty and 

25 health to life. Therefore we abhor deliberate or reckless 
untruth in this study as much as in any other; and there- 
fore we feel that a grave wrong is committed by all who, 
holding a position that entitles them to respect, yet con- 
done and encourage such untruth. 



THE DEER OF NORTH AMERICA 

With the exception of the bison, during the period of 
its plenty, the chief game animals followed by the Amer- 
ican rifle-bearing hunter have always been the different 
representatives of the deer family, and, out on the great 
plains, the pronghorn antelope. They were the games 
which Daniel Boone followed during the closing decades 
of the eighteenth century, and David Crockett during 
the opening decades of the nineteenth; and now, at the 
outset of the twentieth century, it is probably not too 
much to say that ninety-nine out of every hundred head lo 
of game killed in the United States are deer, elk, or an- 
telope. Indeed, the proportion is very much larger. In 
certain restricted localities black bear were at one time 
very numerous, and over large regions the multitudinous 
herds of the bison formed until 1883 the chief objects of i5 
pursuit. But the bison have now vanished; and though 
the black bear has held its own better than any other of 
the larger carnivora, it is only very locally that it has 
ever been plentiful in the sense that even now the elk, 
deer, and antelope are still plentiful over considerable 20 
tracts of country. Taking the United States as a whole, 
the deer have always been by far the most numerous of 
all game; they have held their own in the land better 
than any other kinds; and they have been the most com- 
mon quarry of the hunter. 25 

The nomenclature and exact specific relationships of 
American deer and antelope offer difficulties not only to 
the hunter but to the naturaUst. As regards the nomen- 
clature, we share the trouble encountered by all peoples 

267 



268 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

of European descent who have gone into strange lands. 
The incomers are ahnost invariably men who are not 
accustomed to scientific precision of expression. Like 
other people, they do not like to invent names if they 
Scan by any possibiUty make use of those already in 
existence, and so in a large number of cases they call the 
new birds, and animals by names applied to entirely 
different birds and animals of the Old World to which, 
in the eyes of the settlers, they bear some resemblance. 

10 In South America the Spaniards, for instance, christened 
'^lion^' and ^Higer'' the great cats which are properly 
known as cougar and jaguar. In South Africa the Dutch 
settlers, who came from a land where all big game had 
long been exterminated, gave fairly grotesque names to 

15 the great antelopes, calling them after the European 
elk, stag, and chamois. The French did but little better 
in Canada. Even in Ceylon the English, although be- 
longing for the most part to the educated classes, did 
no better than the ordinary pioneer settlers, miscalling 

20 the sambur stag an elk, and the leopard a cheetah. Our 
own pioneers behaved in the same way. Hence it is that 
we have no distinctive name at all for the group of pe- 
culiarly American game birds of -which the bob-white is 
the typical representative; and that, when we could not 

25 use the words quail, partridge, or pheasant, we went 
for our terminology to the barn-^^ard, and called our 
fine grouse, fool-hens, sage-hens, and prairie-chickens. 
The bear and wolf our people recognized at once. The 
bison they called a buffalo, which was no worse than the 

30 way in which every one in Europe called the Old World 
bison an aurochs. The American true elk and reindeer 
were rechristened moose and caribou — excellent names,. 



THE DEER OF NORTH AMERICA 269 

by the way, derived from the Indian. The huge stag 
was called an elk. The extraordinary antelope of the high 
Western peaks was christened the white goat; not un- 
naturally, as it has a most goatlike look. The prong- 
buck of the plains, an animal standing as much alone 5 
among ruminants as does the giraffe, was simply called 
antelope. Even when we invented names for ourselves, 
we applied them loosely. The ordinary deer is sometimes 
known as the red deer, sometimes as the Virginia deer, 
and sometimes as the whitetail deer, — the last being lo 
by far the best and most distinctive term. 

In the present condition of zoological research it is 
not possible to state accurately how many ^^ species'^ of 
deer there are in North America, both because mammal- 
ogists have not at hand a sufficient amount of material 15 
in the way of large series of specimens from different 
localities, and because they are not agreed among them- 
selves as to the value of '^species,'' or indeed as to exactly 
what is denoted by the term. Of course, if we had a 
complete series of specimens of extinct and fossil deer 20 
before us, there would be an absolutely perfect inter- 
gradation among all the existing forms through their 
long-vanished ancestral types; for the existing gaps have 
been created by the extinction and transformation of 
these former types. Where the gap is very broad and 25 
well marked no difficulty exists in using terms which 
shall express the difference. Thus the gap separating 
the moose, the caribou, and the wapiti from one another, 
and from the smaller American deer, is so wide, and 
there is so complete a lack of transitional forms, that 30 
the differences among them are expressed by naturalists 
by the use of different generic terms. The gap between 



270 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

the whitetail and the different forms of blacktail, though 
much less, is also clearly marked. But when we come 
to consider the blacktail among themselves, we find two 
very distinct types which yet show a certain tendency to 
5 intergrade; and with the whitetail very wide differences 
exist, even in the United States, both individually among 
the deer of certain localities, and also as between all the 
deer of one locality when compared with all the deer of 
another. Our present knowledge of the various forms 

lohardl}^ justifies us in dogmatizing as to their exact relative 
worth, and even if our knowledge was more complete, 
naturahsts are as yet w^holly at variance as to the laws 
which should govern specific nomenclature. However, 
the hunter, the mere field naturalist, and the lover of 

15 outdoor life, are only secondarily interested in the nice- 
ness of these distinctions, and it is for them that this 
volume is written. Accordingl}^, I shall make no effort 
to determine the number of different but closely allied 
forms of smaller deer which are found in North Temper- 

20 ate America. 

Disregarding the minor differences, there are in North 
America in addition to the so-called antelope, six wholly 
distinct kinds of deer: the moose, caribou, wapiti, white- 
tail, and the two black tails. 

25 The moose in its various forms reaches from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, through the cold boreal forests of Canada, 
extending its range down into the United States in north- 
ern New England, Minnesota, and along the Rocky 
Mountains. It was exterminated from the Adirondacks 

30 in the early sixties, about the time that the wapiti was 
exterminated in Pennsylvania, or very shortly before. It 
is the brother of the Old World elk, and its huge size, 



THE DEER OF NORTH AMERICA 271 

shovel horns, short neck, swollen nose, and long legs dis- 
tinguish it at a glance from any other animal. 

The caribou is found throughout most of the moose^s 
range, but it does not extend so far south, and in some of 
its forms reaches much farther north, being found on the 5 
cold barrens, from Newfoundland to the shores of the 
Arctic. It is the only animal which is still at certain 
seasons found in enormous multitudes comparable to the 
vast herds of bison in the old days, and in parts of its 
range it is being slaughtered in the same butcherly spirit lo 
that was responsible for the extinction of the bison. The 
different kinds of American caribou are closely akin to 
the reindeer of the Old World, and their long, irregularly 
branched antlers, wdth palmated ends, their big feet, 
coarse heads, and stout bodies, render them as easily dis- is 
tinguishable as the moose. 

The wapiti or round-homed elk always had its centre 
of abundance in the United States, though in the West it 
was also found far north of the Canadian line. This splen- 
did deer affords a good instance of the difficulty of deciding 20 
what name to use in treating of our American game. On 
the one hand, it is entirely undesirable to be pedantic; and 
on the other hand, it seems a pity, at a time when speech 
is written almost as much as spoken, to use terms which 
perpetually require explanation in order to avoid confu-2S 
sion. The wapiti is not properly an elk at all; the term 
wapiti is unexceptionable, and it is greatly to be desired 
that it should be generally adopted. But unfortunately it 
has not been generally adopted. From the time when our 
backwoodsmen first began to hunt the animal among the 30 
foot-hills of the Appalachian chains to the present day, it 
has been universally known as elk wherever it has been 



272 ROOSEVELT S WRITINGS 

found. In ordinary speech it is never known as anything 
else, and only an occasional settler or hunter would under- 
stand what the word wapiti referred to. The book name is 
a great deal better than the common name; but after all, 

5 it is only a book name. The case is almost exactly parallel 
to that of the buffalo, which was really a bison, but which 
lived as the buffalo, died as the buffalo, and left its name 
imprinted on our landscape as the buffalo. There is little 
use in trying to upset a name which is imprinted in our 

10 geography in hundreds of such titles as Elk Ridge, Elk 
Mountain, Elkhorn River. Yet in the books it is often 
necessary to call it the wapiti in order to distinguish it 
both from its different named close kinsfolk of the Old 
World, and from its more distant relatives with which it 

15 shares the name of elk. It is the largest of the true deer, 
and the noblest and stateliest of the deer kind through- 
out the world. It is closely akin to the much smaller 
European stag or red deer, and still more closely to certain 
Asiatic deer, one of which so closely approaches it in size, 

20 appearance, and stately presence as to be almost indistin- 
guishable. Its huge and yet delicately moulded propor- 
tions, and its massive, rounded antlers, the beam of which 
bends backward from the head, while the tines are thrust 
forward, render it impossible to confound it with any 

25 other species of American deer. Owing to its habitat it 
has suffered from the persecution of hunters and settlers 
more than any other of its fellows in America, and the 
boimdaries of its range have shrunk in far greater propor- 
tion. The moose and caribou have in most places greatly 

30 diminished in numbers, and have here and there been 
exterminated altogether from outlying portions of their 
range; but the wapiti has completely vanished from nine- 



THE DEER OF NORTH AMERICA 273 

tenths of the territory over which it roamed a century 
and a quarter ago. Although it was never found in any 
one place in such enormous numbers as the bison and the 
caribou, it nevertheless went in herds far larger than 
the herds of any other American game save the two men- 5 
tioned, and was formerly very much more abundant 
within the area of its distribution than was the moose 
within the area of its distribution. It is now almost lim- 
ited to certain mountainous areas in the Rockies and on 
the Pacific coast, — The Pacific coast form differing from lo 
the ordinary form. 

The remaining three deer are much more closely con- 
nected with one another, all belonging to the same genus. 
The whitetail has always been, and is now, on the whole 
the commonest of American game, and it has held its is 
own better than any other kind. It is found from south- 
ern Canada, in various forms, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, down into South America. It is given various 
names, and throughout most of its habitat is simply 
known as ^'deer'^; but wherever it comes in contact with 20 
the blacktail it is almost invariably called whitetail. This 
is a very appropriate name, for its tail is habitually so 
carried as to be extremely conspicuous, being white and 
bushy, only the middle part above being dark colored. 
The antlers curve out and forward, the prongs branch- 25 
ing from the posterior surface. 

The Rocky Mountain blacktail or mule-deer is some- 
what larger, wdth large ears, its tail short-haired and round, 
white excepting for a black tip, and with antlers which 
fork evenly like the prongs of a pitchfork, — so that it 30 
is difficult to say which prong should be considered the 
main shaft, — and each prong itself bifurcates again. In 



274 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

the books this animal is called the mule-deer, but through- 
out its haunts it is almost always known simply as the 
blacktaiL It is found in rough, broken country from the 
Bad Lands of the western Dakotas to the Pacific coast, 

sand is everywhere the characteristic deer of the Rocky 
Mountains. The southern Cahfornia form is peculiar, 
especially in having a dark stripe on the tail above. 

The true blacktail is found on the Pacific coast from 
southern Alaska to northern California. Its horns are 

10 like those of the Rocky Mountain blacktail; its tail is 
more like that of the whitetail, but is not as large, and 
the white is much reduced, the color above and on the 
sides, to the very tip, being barely black. 

The most striking and melancholy feature in connection 

15 with American big game is the rapidity with which it 
has vanished. When, just before the outbreak of the 
Revolutionary War, the rifle-bearing hunters of the back- 
woods first penetrated the great forests west of the Alle- 
ghanies, deer, elk, black bear, and even buffalo swarmed 

20 in what are now the states of Kentucky and Tennessee; 
and the country north of the Ohio was a great and almost 
virgin hunting-ground. From that day to this the shrink- 
age has gone on, only partially checked here and there, 
and never arrested as a whole. As a matter of historical 

25 accuracy, however, it is well to bear in mind that a great 
many writers in lamenting this extinction of the game 
have, from time to time, anticipated or overstated the 
facts. Thus as good an author as Colonel Richard Irving 
Dodge spoke of the buffalo as practically extinct, while 

30 the great northern herd still existed in countless thousands. 
As early as 1880 very good sporting authorities spoke 
not only of the buffalo but of the elk, deer, and antelope 



THE DEER OF NORTH AMERICA 275 

as no longer to be found in plenty; and within a year one 
of the greatest of living hunters has stated that it is no 
longer possible to find any American wapiti bearing heads 
comparable with the red deer of Hungary. As a matter 
of fact, in the early eighties there were still great regions 5 
where every species of game that had ever been known 
within historic times on our continent were still to be 
found as plentifully as ever. In the early nineties there 
were still large regions in which this was true of all game 
except the buffalo; for instance, it was true of the elk in lo 
portions of northwestern Wyoming, of the blacktail in 
northwestern Colorado, of the whitetail here and there 
in the Indian Territory, and of the antelope in parts of 
New Mexico. Even at the present day there are smaller, 
but still considerable regions where these four animals is 
are yet found in great abundance, and I have seen antlers 
of wapiti shot in 1900 far surpassing any of which there 
is record from Hungary. In New England and New York, 
as well as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the whitetail 
deer is more plentiful than it was thirty years ago, and 20 
in Maine (and to an even greater extent in New Brunswick 
the moose and caribou have, on the whole, increased 
during the same period. There is yet ample opportunity 
for the big game hunter in the United States and Canada; 
while not even in the old days was it possible to go on 25 
any trip better worth taking than the recent successful 
hunt of Mr. Dall DeWeese, of Canon City, Colorado, 
after the giant moose, giant bear, white sheep, and caribou 
of Alaska. 

While it is necessary to give this word of warning to 30 
those who, in praising time past, always forget the oppor- 
tunities of the present, it is a thousand fold more necessary 



276 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

to remember that these opportunities are, nevertheless, 
vanishing; and if we are a sensible people, we will make 
it our business to see that the process of extinction is 
arrested. At the present moment the great herds of 

5 caribou are being butchered as in the past the great herds 
of bison and wapiti have been butchered. Every believer 
in manliness, and therefore in manly sport, and every 
lover of nature, every man who appreciates the majesty 
and beauty of the wilderness and of wild Hfe, should 

10 strike hands with the far-sighted men who wish to pre- 
serve our material resources, in the effort to keep our 
forests and our game beasts, game birds, and game fish — 
indeed all the living creatures of prairie, and woodland, 
and seashore — ^from wanton destruction. 



THE WHITETAIL DEER 

The whitetail deer is now, as it always has been, the 
most plentiful and most widely distributed of American 
big game. It holds its own in the land better than any 
other species, because it is by choice a dweller in the thick 
forests and swamps, the places around which the tide of 5 
civiUzation flows, leaving them as islets of refuge for the 
wild creatures which formerly haunted all the country. 
The range of the whitetail is from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, and from the Canadian to the Mexican borders, 
and somewhat to the north and far to the south of these lo 
limits. The animal shows a wide variability, both in- 
dividually and locally, within these confines; from the 
hunter's standpoint it is not necessary to tr^^ to determine 
exactl}^ the weight that attaches to these local variations. 

There is also a very considerable variation in habits, is 
As compared with the mule-deer, the whitetail is not a 
lover of the mountains. As compared with the prong- 
buck, it is not a lover of the treeless plains. Yet in the 
AUeghanies and the Adirondacks, at certain seasons espe- 
cially, and in some places at all seasons, it dwells high 20 
among the densely wooded mountains, wandering over 
their crests and sheer sides, and through the deep ravines; 
while in the old days there were parts of Texas and the 
Indian Territory where it was found in great herds far 
out on the prairie. Moreover, the peculiar nature of its 25 
chosen habitat, while generally enabhng it to resist the 
onslaught of man longer than any of its fellows, some- 
times exposes it to speedy extermination. To the west- 
ward of the rich bottom-lands and low prairies of the 

277 



278 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

Mississippi Valley proper, when the dry plains country 
is reached, the natural conditions are much less favor- 
able for whitetail than for other big game. The black 
bear, which in the East has almost precisely the same 
5 habitat as the whitetail, disappears entirely on the great 
plains, and reappears in the Rockies in regions which the 
whitetail does not reach. All over the great plains, into 
the foot-hills of the Rockies, the whitetail is found, but 
only in the thick timber of the river bottoms. Through- 

10 out the regions of the Upper Missouri and Upper Platte, 
the Big Horn, Powder, Yellowstone, and Cheyenne, over 
all of which I have hunted, the whitetail lives among the 
Cottonwood groves and dense brush growth that fringe the 
river beds and here and there extend some distance up the 

15 mouths of the large creeks. In these places the whitetail 
and the mule-deer may exist in close proximity; but nor- 
mally neitherinvades the haunts of the other. 

Along the ordinary plains river, such as the Little Mis- 
souri, where I ranched for many years, there are three 

20 entirely different types of country through which a man 
passes as he travels away from the bed of the river. There 
is first the alluvial river bottom covered with Cottonwood 
and box-elder, together with thick brush. These bottoms 
may be a mile or two across, or they may shrink to but a 

25 few score yards. After the extermination of the wapiti, 
which roamed everjnvhere, the only big game animal 
found in them was the whitetail deer. Beyond this level 
alluvial bottom the ground changes abruptly to bare, 
rugged hills or fantastically carved and shaped Bad Lands 

30 rising on either side of the river, the ravines, coulies, 
creeks, and canyons twisting through them in every di- 
rection. Here there are patches of ash, cedar, pine, and 



THE WHITETAIL DEER 279 

occasionally other trees, but the country is very rugged, 
and the cover very scanty. This is the home of the mule- 
deer, and, in the roughest and wildest parts, of the big- 
horn. The absolutely clear and sharply defined line of 
demarkation between this rough, hilly country, flanking 5 
the river, and the alluvial river bottom, serves as an equally 
clearly marked line of demarkation between the ranges 
of the whitetail and the mule-deer. This belt of broken 
country ma}^ be only a few hundred yards in width; or it 
may extend for a score of miles before it changes into the lo 
open prairies, the high plains proper. As soon as these 
are reached, the prongbuck's domain begins. 

As the plains country is passed, and the vast stretches 
of mountainous region entered, the river bottoms become 
narrower, and the plains on which the prongbuck is found 15 
become of very limited extent, shrinking to high valleys 
and plateaus, while the mass of rugged foot-hills and moun- 
tains add immensely to the area of the mule-deer's habitat. 

Given equal areas of country, of the three different 
types alluded to above, that in which the mule-deer is 20 
found offers the greatest chance of success to the rifle- 
bearing hunter, because there is enough cover to shield 
him and not enough to allow his quarry to escape by 
stealth and hiding. On the other hand, the thick river 
bottoms offer him the greatest difficulty. In consequence, 25 
where the areas of distribution of the different game ani- 
mals are about equal, the mule-deer disappears first be- 
fore the hunter, the prongbuck next, while the whitetail 
holds out the best of all. I saw this frequently on the 
Yellowstone, the Powder, and the Little Missouri. When 30 
the ranchman first came into this country the mule-deer 
swarmed, and yielded a far more certain harvest to the 



280 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

hunter than did either the prongbuck or the whitetaiL 
They were the first to be thinned out, the prongbuck 
lasting much better. The cowboys and small ranchmen, 
most of whom did not at the time have hounds, then fol- 
5 lowed the prongbuck; and this, in its turn, was killed out 
before the whitetaiL But in other places a slight change 
in the conditions completely reversed the order of de- 
struction. In parts of Wyoming and Montana the moun- 
tainous region where the mule-deer dwelt was of such 

10 vast extent, and the few river bottoms on which the 
whitetail were found were so easily hunted, that the white- 
tail was completely exterminated throughout large dis- 
tricts where the mule-deer continued to abound. More- 
over, in these regions the tablelands and plains upon which 

15 the prongbuck was found were limited in extent, and al- 
though the prongbuck outlasted the whitetail, it vanished 
long before the herds of the mule-deer had been destroyed 
from among the neighboring mountains. 

The whitetail was originally far less common in the 

20 forests of northern New England than v/as the moose, 
for in the deep snows the moose had a much better chance 
to escape from its brute foes and to withstand cold and 
starvation. But when man appeared upon the scene he 
followed the moose so much more eagerly than he followed 

25 the deer that the conditions were reversed and the moose 
was killed out. The moose thus vanished entirely from 
the Adirondacks, and almost entirely from Maine; but 
the excellent game laws of the latter state, and the honesty 
and efficiency with which they have been executed during 

30 the last twenty years, has resulted in an increase of moose 
during that time. During the same period the whitetail 
deer has increased to an even greater extent. It is doubt- 



THE WHITETAIL DEER 281 

less now more plentiful in New York and New England 
than it was a quarter of a century ago. Stragglers are 
found in Connecticut, and, what is still more extraordi- 
nary, even occasionally come into wild parts of densely 
populated little Rhode Island, — my authority for the last 5 
statement being Mr. C. Grant La Farge. Of all our wild 
game, the whitetail responds most quickly to the efforts 
for its protection, and except the wapiti, it thrives best 
in semi-domestication; in consequence, it has proved easy 
to preserve it, even in such places as Cape Code in Mas- lo 
sachusetts and Long Island in New York; while it has in- 
creased greatly in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, 
and has more than held its own in the Adirondacks. Mr. 
James R. Sheffield, of New York City, in the summer of 
1899, spent several weeks on a fishing trip through north- is 
em Maine. He kept count of the moose and deer he saw, 
and came across no less than thirty-five of the former and 
over five hundred and sixty of the latter; in the most 
lonely parts of the forest deer were found by the score, 
feeding in broad daylight on the edges of the ponds. Deer 20 
are still plentiful in many parts of the Alleghany Moun- 
tains, from Pennsylvania southward, and also in the 
swamps and cane-brakes of the South Atlantic and Gulf 
states. 

Where the differences in habitat and climate are so 25 
great there are may changes of habits, and some of them 
of a noteworthy kind. Mr. John A. Mclllhenny, of Avery's 
Island, Louisiana, formerly a lieutenant in my regiment,"^ 
lives in what is still a fine game country. His plantation 
is in the delta of the Mississippi, among the vast marshes, 30 
north of which lie the wooded swamps. Both the marshes 
and the swamps were formerly literally thronged with 



282 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

whitetail deer, and the animals are still plentiful in them. 
Mr. Mclllhenny has done much deer-hunting, always 
using hounds. He informs me that the breeding times 
are unexpectedly different from those of the northern 
5 deer. In the North, in different localities, the rut takes 
place in October or November, and the fawns are dropped 
in May or June. In the Louisiana marshes around Av- 
ery's Island the rut begins early in July and the fawns 
are dropped in February. In the swamps immediately 

10 north of these marshes the dates are fully a month later. 
The marshes are covered with tall reeds and grass, and 
broken by bayous, while there are scattered over them 
what are called ^^ islands" of firmer ground overgrown 
with timber. In this locality the deer live in the same 

15 neighborhood all the year round, just as, for instance, 
they do on Long Island. So on the Little Missouri, in 
the neighborhood of my ranch, they lived in exactly the 
same localities throughout the entire year. Occasionally 
they would shift from one river bottom to another, or go 

20 a few miles up or down stream because of scarcity of food. 
But there was no general shifting. 

On the Little Missouri, in one place where they were 
not molested, I knew a particular doe and fawn with 
whose habits I became quite intimately acquainted. 

25 When the moon was full they fed chiefly by night, and 
spent most of the day lying in the thick brush. When 
there was little or no moon they would begin to feed early 
in the morning, then take a siesta, and then — what struck 
me as most curious of all — would go to a little willow- 

30 bordered pool about noon to drink, feeding for some time 
before and after drinking. After another siesta they 
would come out late in the afternoon and feed until dark. 



THE WHITETAIL DEEH 283 

In the Adirondacks the deer often alter their habits 
completely at different seasons. Soon after the fawns are 
born they come down to the water^s edge, preferring the 
neighborhood of the lakes, but also haunting the stream 
banks. The next three months, during the hot weather, 5 
they keep very close to the water, and get a large propor- 
tion of their food by wading in after the lilies and other 
aquatic plants. Where they are much hunted, they only 
come to the water's edge after dark, but in regions where 
they are little disturbed they are quite as often diurnal lo 
in their habits. I have seen dozens feeding in the neigh- 
borhood of a lake, some of them two or three hundred 
yards out of the shallow places, up to their bellies; and 
this after sunrise, or two or three hours before sunset. Be- 
fore September the deer cease coming to the water, and 15 
go back among the dense forests and on the mountains. 
There is no genuine migration, as in the case of the mule- 
deer, from one big tract to another, and no entire deser- 
tion of any locality. But the food supply which drew the 
animals to the water's edge during the summer months 20 
shows signs of exhaustion toward fall; the delicate water- 
plants have vanished, the marsh-grass is dying, and the 
lilies are less succulent. An occasional deer still wanders 
along the shores or out into the lake, but most of them 
begin to roam the woods, eating the berries and the leaves 25 
and twig ends of the deciduous trees, and even of some 
of the conifers, although a whitetail is fond of grazing, 
especially upon the tips of the grass itself. I have seen 
moose feeding on the tough old lily stems and wading 
after them when the ice had skimmed the edges of the 30 
pool. But the whitetail has usually gone back into the 
woods long before freezing time. 



284 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

From Long Island south there is not enough snow to 
make the deer alter their habits in the winter. As soon as 
the rut is over, which in different localities may be from 
October to December, whitetail are apt to band together — 
5 more apt than at any other season, although even then 
they are often found singly or in small parties. While 
nursing, the does have been thin, and at the end of the 
rut the bucks are gaunt, with their necks swollen and 
distended. From that time on bucks and does alike put 

10 on flesh very rapidly in preparation for the winter. Where 
there is no snow, or not enough to interfere with their 
travelling, they continue to roam anywhere through 
the woods and across the natural pastures and meadows, 
eating twigs, buds, nuts, and the natural hay which is 

15 cured on the stalk. 

In the northern woods they form yards during the win- 
ter. These yards are generally found in a hardwood growth 
which offers a supply of winter food, and consist simply 
of a tangle of winding trails beaten out through the snow 

20 by the incessant passing and repassing of the animal. The 
yard merely enables the deer to move along the various 
paths in order to obtain food. If there are many deer to- 
gether, the 3^ards may connect by interlacing paths, so 
that a deer can run a considerable distance through them. 

25 Often, however, each deer will yard by itself, as food is 
the prime consideration, and a given locality may only 
have enough to support a single animal. When the 
snows grow deep the deer is wholly unable to move, once 
the yard is left, and hence it is absolutely at the mercy of a 

30 man on snow-shoes, or of a cougar or a wolf, if found at 
such times. The man on snow-shoes can move very 
comfortably; and the cougar and the wolf, although 



THE WHITETAIL DEER 285 

hampered by the snow, are not rendered helpless like the 
deer. I have myself scared a deer out of a yard and seen 
it flounder helplessly in a great drift before it had gone 
thirty rods. When I came up close it ploughed its way 
a very short distance through the drifts, making tremen- 5 
dous leaps. But as the snow was over six feet deep, so 
that the deer sank below the level of the surface at each 
jump, and yet could not get its feet on the solid ground, 
it became so exhausted that it fell over on its side and 
bleated in terror as I came up; after looking at it I passed lo 
on. Hide hunters and frontier settlers sometimes go out 
after the deer on snow-shoes when there is a crust, and 
hence this method of killing is called crusting. It is simply 
butchery, for the deer cannot, as the moose does, cause 
its pursuer a chase which may last days. No self-respect- is 
ing man would follow this method of hunting save from 
the necessity of having meat. 

In very wild localities deer sometimes yard on the ice 
along the edges of lakes, eating off att the twigs and 
branches, whether of hardwood trees or of conifers, which 20 
they can reach. 

At the beginning of the rut the does flee from the bucks, 
which follow them by scent at full speed. The white- 
tail buck rarely tries to form a herd of does, though 
he will sometimes gather two or three. The mere fact 25 
that his tactics necessitate a long and arduous chase after 
each individual doe prevents his organizing herds as the 
wapiti b^ill does. Sometimes two or three bucks will be 
found s^: ^<ng out one behind the other, following the same 
doe. The bucks wage desperate battle among them- 30 
selves during this season, coming together with a clash, 
and then pushing and straining for an hour or two at a 



286 HOOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

time, with their mouths open, mitil the weakest gives 
way. As soon as one abandons the fight he flees with all 
possible speed, and usually escapes unscathed. While 
head to head there is no opportunity for a disabling thrust, 

5 but if, in the effort to retreat, the beaten buck gets caught, 
he may be killed. Owing to the character of the antlers 
whitetail bucks are peculiarly apt to get them interlocked 
in such a fight, and if the efforts of the two beasts fail to 
disentangle them, both ultimately perish by starvation. 

10 1 have several times come across a pair of skulls with 
interlocked antlers. The same thing occurs, though far 
less frequently, to the mule-deer and even the wapiti. 

The whitetail is the most beautiful and graceful of all 
our game animals when in motion. I have never been 

15 able to agree with Judge Caton that the mule-deer is 
clumsy and awkward in his gait. I suppose all such 
terms are relative. Compared to the moose or caribou 
the mule-deer is light and quick in his movements, and 
to me there is something very attractive in the poise and 

20 power vnth which one of the great bucks bounds off, all 
four legs striking the earth together and shooting the 
body upwara and forward as if they were steel springs. 
But there can be no question as to the infinitely superior 
grace and beauty of the whitetail when he either trots 

25 or runs. The mule-deer and blacktail bound, as already 
described. The prongbuck gallops with an even gait, 
and so does the bighorn, when it happens to be caught 
on a flat; but the whitetail moves with an indescribable 
spring and buoyancy. If surprised close up, ?jid much 

30 terrified, it simply runs away as hard as it can, at a gait 
not materially different from that of any other game ani- 
mal under like circumstances, wMle its head is thrust for- 



THE WHITETAIL DEER 287 

ward and held down, and the tail is raised perpendicularly. 
But normally its mode of progression, whether it trots or 
gallops, is entirely unique. In trotting, the head and 
tail are both held erect, and the animal throws out its 
legs with a singularly proud and free motion, bringing the s 
feet well up, while at every step there is an indescribable 
spring. In the canter or gallop the head and tail are also 
held erect, the flashing white brush being very conspicuous. 
Three or four low, long, marvellously springy bounds 
are taken, and then a great leap is made high in the air, lo 
which is succeeded by three or four low bounds, and then 
by another high leap. A whitetail going through the 
brush in this manner is a singularly beautiful sight. It 
has been my experience that they are not usually very 
much frightened by an ordinary slow trackhound, and 15 
I have seen a buck play along in front of one, alternately 
trotting and cantering, head and flag up, and evidently 
feeling very little fear. 



OBSERVATIONS ON CONCEALING COLORATION 
IN AFRICAN ANIMALS ^ 

In Africa I was able to study for nearly a year the habits 
of the teeming myriads of great game, and many of my 
observations were made with special reference to this 
question of concealing coloration. The first, and by far 
5 the most important, fact brought home to any competent 
observer is that as regards the great majority of these 
animals the question of cover infinitely outweighs the 
question of coloration in the problem of concealment; 
this being so true that when there is no adequate cover 

10 most of the big animals do not trust to concealment at 
all, and concealment, whether of coloration or otherwise, 
plays no part in making their lives successful. Next comes 
the fact that there are some animals, chiefly the cats, 
w^hose peculiar physical address in hiding and in stealthy 

15 approach and escape is such that their abihty in this 
respect far outweighs the question of coloration, and even 
the question of cover, provided the cover is in any way 
adequate. Finally, there are some animals as to which 
it is possible that the coloration does have a concealing 

20 effect of some importance. 

The game that dwells in thick cover is extremely hard, 
not merely to shoot, but even to see; and it is the cover, 
and not the coloration of the animals, that is responsible 
for this. Indeed mere size seems to have a far greater 

25 effect on visibihty than does color; the bigger the animal, 

^Reprinted by permission from ^'Revealing and Conceal- 
ing Coloration in Birds and Mammals" in Bulletin of the 
American Museum of Natural History, vol. xxx, p. 119. 

288 



CONCEALING COLORATION 289 

the easier it is to see. But sufHciently heavy cover shields 
even the heaviest game. In the high elephant grass, and 
in bamboos, as well as in dense forest, elephants disappear 
so completely that they can only be procured by following 
on their trail, and even their giant bodies, looming black 5 
and large, are not visible to the peering, expectant hunter 
imtil but a few yards away. The buffalo, big, black, 
easily trailed, are, just because smaller, even more difficult 
to follow and see in thick cover, whether of reeds or jungle. 
Neither animal gets the shghtest advantage from its color; lo 
indeed the coloration of both is advertising; but in such 
cover the coloration is of no consequence, one way or the 
other. The hunter follows the trail, and if the beast does 
not hear or wind him, he finally catches a glimpse of it 
close up — ^just as the weasel follows the trail of a rabbit is 
or mouse until close enough for the jump. The difference 
is merely that the hunter follows the trail by sight, and 
the weasel by scent; doubtless the latter ^s sharp eyes come 
in use when the scent warns it that its quarry is close by; 
and there is no more warrant for supposing that the weasel 20 
is misled by the "white stern sky pattern'' on such of liis 
victims as happen to possess such a pattern than for sup- 
posing that the hunter would be misled if an elephant 
were similarly ornamented. 

Those rhinoceroses that dwell in the bush are hard to 25 
see and hunt, whereas in the plains they are, next to the 
elephant and the giraffe, the most conspicuous animals. 
In the bush they owe their invisibiht}^ solely to the cover; 
their coloration is of no consequence one way or the other, r^ 

The lesser game animals of the thick cover vary so 30 
widely in coloration as to render it impossible that the 
coloration of any one of them can be of real protective 



290 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

or concealing value. In the gloomy, wet mountain forests, 
choked with vines and undergrowth and down timber, 
the giant hog and the bongo are the two typical big game 
animals. The giant hog is almost black; the bongo, an 

5 antelope as big as an alderney cow, is brilliantly colored. 
The coloration of the bongo is, if anything, advertising 
rather than concealing — it is certainly advertising under 
any conditions which make the color of its co-dweller 
in the same haunts, the giant hog, concealing. But as a 

10 matter of fact the coloration has not the slightest effect 
in either revealing or concealing the presence of either 
animal. Each is so wary, and the extreme thickness of 
the cover serves each as such a complete shield, that they 
are hardly ever seen or shot by the best and most persever- 

15 ing white hunters, and only rarely killed by the wild, 
naked wood men themselves, unless with the assistance 
of dogs. The same is true as regards the effect of the 
coloration of the smaller animals found in the edges of 
the heavy timber, or in the lighter forests; the bush buck, 

20 reed buck, water buck, and bush pig. The bush buck 
in all its phases is a brilliantly colored antelope, bright 
chestnut or reddish, varied with white. Its coloration is 
always advertising. At first I thought the reed buck's 
coloration was under certain circumstances concealing, 

25 but further experience made me come to the conclusion 
and this was not so, and that I had been misled by the 
fact that its coloration was not so boldly advertising as 
the bush buck's. When driven out of a reed bed or 
thicket or when startled and dashing through one, the 

30 advertising effect on the vivid coloration was at once 
evident. The reed buck was much the easier of the two 
to see or shoot simply because it was generally found ia 



CONCEALING COLORATION 291 

more open ground. Both owed their invisibility purely 
to the thick cover in which they dwelt and to their own 
ability in lying close or skulking stealthily off; their color- 
ation, where it had any effect, was revealing and not 
concealing. But the effect of the coloration is probably 5 
negligible. It was practically impossible to see the grass- 
dwelling reed buck while the grass was really long; and 
it became quite conspicuous as soon as the grass was 
burned. It was the grass and not the coloration which 
determined whether it should be visible to the eyes of its lo 
foes. When it ran it showed its white flag much like a 
whitetail deer. The water bucks, of two species, were 
sometimes found in thin forest or patches of dense forest, 
and in papyrus beds, but more commonly in comparatively 
open country. When in thick cover they often tried to 15 
escape notice by standing motionless or sneaking quietly 
off, and their coloration was certainly less conspicuous 
than that of the two smaller antelope; but they themselves 
were always more conspicuous because of their larger 
size, their greater clumsiness in skulking, and especially 20 
the more open nature of their haunts. One of the two 
kinds of water buck had a white patch round the rump; 
which was advertising. The bush pig was a dark colored 
beast, less conspicuous than the antelope. 

We found two antelopes dwelling in the thick swamps, 25 
the situtunga and the white-withered lechwe. Both are 
handsome, striking looking antelopes. The situtunga has 
a shaggy, dark, nearly monocolored coat. Its coloration 
is not advertising,, in the sense that black or white is 
advertising, but neither is it concealing, save as any nearly 30 
imiform rather dull color is concealing, the extreme diffi- 
culty in seeing it — and save its cousin the bongo it is the 



292 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

most difficult of all the big antelopes of East Africa to see — 
arises practically exclusively fror^ its secretive, stealthy 
nature, and the impenetrable cover afforded by the beds 
of reeds and papyrus in which it dwells. It ventures be- 

syond the edges only at night, and then for but a short 
distance. The white-withered lechwe dwells in the reed 
beds and the edges of the papyrus swamps of the middle 
White Nile. Its coloration is advertising instead of con- 
cealing, the old bucks in particular being very conspicuous 

10 because of the white of their withers and the upper sides 
of their necks; and it is a noisy creature, grunting continu- 
ally. But it is not nearly as easy to see or to shoot as 
are the antelope of the open plains, for it lives in dense 
cover and seeks to avoid observation; it wiU stand motion- 

jsless in the thick reeds or sneak off through them with 
neck outstretched and head held low; it does not habit- 
ually jump up on ant hills to look about as is the custom 
of its cousin the kob. The coloration of the doe is almost 
exactly the same as that of the kob doe, although the 

20 habitat and surroundings are different; the kob dwelling 
on the open plains or among sparsely scattered clumps of 
grass, bush and trees, where it is very visible, and makes 
little effort to avoid observation, usually trusting to its 
vigilance and sharp sight to enable it to see its foes at a 

i5 distance (although occasionally lying close hke a reed 
buck, in long grass); while the white-withered lechwe 
spends its whole time in the reed beds, trusting to its 
surroundings to shield it from the sight of any foe, these 
surroundings being such that its coloration probably 

30 makes no difference either way as far as concealment goes. 
At any rate the bright red of the does, and the brilliant 
white back and neck markings of the old bucks, seen 



CONCEALING COLORATION 293 

against the dark green of the endless reeds, must always 
be advertising where they have any effect at all. 

Here are two water, or swamp, antelope, each trusting 
for safety mainly to eluding observation, and both living 
in practically the same surroundings, yet totally different 5 
in color; and the one with the less concealing coloration 
is the one which lives under conditions that would make 
it more important to have a conceahng coloration. The 
coloration in these cases must be a well-nigh or altogether 
negligible element from the concealing standpoint. A lo 
similar lesson was impressed on me by my experience with 
the various antelope in the Lado, on the west bank of the 
upper White Nile, during our hunt after the white rhinoc- 
eros. For miles around our camp country was open, 
covered with tall grass and a sparse, scattering growth of 15 
thorn trees, with occasional patches of brush and scrub. 
During our stay most of the grass was burnt. Where the 
grass I was very long it was almost impossible to see or 
find any of the antelope, but where it was short or sparse, 
and especially where it was burnt, the difficulty vanished. 20 
Hartebeest, water buck, kob, bush buck, oribi, and dyker 
were abundant. The bush buck's red coat was marked 
with white stripes and spots making the ^'checkered sun- 
fleck and leaf-shadowed'^ pattern which Mr. Thayer 
considers so potently obliterative. The other species 25 
were almost uniformly colored — bright foxy red, straw- 
tinted, gray, brown. Of course if any one of these color- 
ation patterns was concealing the others must have been 
advertising. But the difference in coloration sank into 
insignificance, so far as giving concealment was concerned, 30 
compared to the difference in size. The bush buck was 
harder to see and kill than the water buck, kob or harte- 



294 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

beest, simply because it kept closer to the thickets and 
patches of long grass and was more given to skulking; but 
the dyker was harder to see and kill than the bush buck, 
in the Lado, although its coat was uniform in color with- 
5 out any of the (purely fanciful) advantages Mr. Thayer 
believes to come from such a ^^ checkered'^ pattern as the 
bush buck's; and this merely because the dyker was 
smaller and was an even greater adept at twisting and 
skulking through the grass and underbrush. All the ante- 

10 lope were frequently found in exactly the same country; 
although as a rule the water buck was the only one of the 
bigger antelope which habitually wandered into the places 
most affected by the bush buck and dyker — and it was 
also habitually found in the favorite haunts of the kob 
and hartebeest. The utterly different colorations of the 

15 different animals had, in reality, no effect whatever as 
regards rendering any one of them more invisible than the 
others; but of these antelopes those that normally dwell 
in the open plains were more visible than the others, under 
lik e conditions, because they did not try to hide them- 

20 selves. 

So much for the animals which seek to conceal them- 
selves, and which owe their escape from notice to the 
cover in which they dwell and their ability to hide and 
skulk. The majority of the big game of the parts of Africa 

25 which I traversed dwell in the open, or very sparsely 
wooded, plains, and do not seek to elude observation at 
all. One thing that struck me about these animals was the 
fact that the ^^countershading'' on which Mr. Thayer 
lays such stress played, so far as I could see, practically no 

30 part whatever in concealing them. The animals of the 
open plain were just as much countershaded as those of the 



CONCEALING COLORATION 295 

jungle; and, exactly as the animals with least counter- 
shading in the jungle were nevertheless as hard to see as 
the others, so on the open plain those with most counter- 
shading were no more concealed than those with practically 
none. The color itself, the hue of the animal, was of 5 
infinitely more consequence than the countershading; 
although, if the ground was flat and the grass short, the 
color was of no consequence, because the animal, if stand- 
ing up, could be seen as far as the eye had power. Of two 
different species, both countershaded — zebras or harte- lO 
beests, for instance and oryx or common eland — the first, 
if colored conspicuously, would be seen a mile or two off, 
while the other was still invisible; the difference of course 
being due to the difference in tint, the countershading being 
the same, and having practically no effect. I do not mean 15 
that the countershading could have been neglected from 
the artistic or pictorial standpoint. Under certain cir- 
cumstances, it did make the animal lose its sharpness of 
outline at a shghtly less distance than would otherwise 
have been the case. But it was of no consequence com- 20 
pared to the general hue of coloration; and of course, if 
this general hue was unlike the surroundings, if there was 
no cover of bushes or of tall grass, and if the ground was 
flat, the animal could be made out anyhow, by any hunter, 
brute or human, at a long distance; within a few hundred 25 
yards or less, the outlines were so vivid that the counter- 
shading was of no consequence whatever. 

The giant eland of the Lado dwelt in a dry sunburnt 
country, covered with a sparse open growth of scantily 
leaved trees and bushes; the general tint of the coat, like 30 
the general tint of the coat of the roan antelope which 
in the same locality, merged well with that of the general 



296 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

landscape; but neither animal sought to skulk or hide^ 
or trusted to concealment, each placing reUance only on 
its keen senses, and wariness. In East Africa, a buck 
Grant's gazelle — not the doe or young, which have the 
5 conspicuous lateral black stripe — an ordinary eland, a 
roan, or an oryx, except when either of the latter animals 
was looking round, so as to show the highly advertising 
face coloring, might be difficult for the eye to pick up at 
a distance, even when the wildebeest, topi, hartebeest or 

10 zebra in the same landscape were plainl}^ visible; but this 
was merely because the coats of the four animals first 
named were of much less conspicuous color than the coats 
of the second four. The countershading on a wildebeest, 
which shows dark against the green or brown or yellowish 

15 plains, had, not merely practically, but absolutely, no 
effect whatever in rendering it invisible, for it could be 
seen as far as a black tree stump, for instance, could be 
seen. Among leafless bushes and small thickets, and 
clumps of tall dried grass, an oryx or roan or buck Grant 

20 might if motionless, for a short time escape the notice of 
untrained eyes, not because of the countershading, but 
simply because in the flood of bright sunlight, the light, 
washed-out color of the surrounding objects prevented 
any vivid contrast and made the eye hesitate in picking 

25 out the motionless antelope from its accidented, motion- 
less, shaded and lighted, not very differently colored, 
surroundings, although these surroundings were solid 
objects. In other words, the reason for even this partial 
invisibility was the direct reverse of what Mr. Thayer 

30 claims; it was not in the least because the animals were 
countershaded, for if their general color was in contrast 
to that of their surroundings they stood out in bold re- 



CONCEALING COLORATION 297 

lief; it was simply because the eye was inattentive to in- 
diAddual objects in the multiplicity of objects, the effects 
of light and shade being practically the same on the buck 
and its surroundings, so that among the rocks and bushes 
and grass clumps and small euphorbias, the body of the 5 
buck was not readily picked out. It was chiefly to my 
own e3'es, however, that the trouble was due; the native 
hunters who were with me could usually pick out the 
animal at once if within any reasonable distance. Doubt- 
less the same is true of a beast of prey, for evidently none lO 
of these antelope, even when they ventured off the open 
bare plain into the brush, trusted to concealment; they 
made no effort to hide, and were constantly on the alert 
to detect foes. But if in very thick and tall grass they did 
hide, lying still, in confidence that they could not be seen is 
unless stumbled upon; here of course their coloration had 
nothing to do with their concealment, which was due 
purely to the dense cover. The only occasions when they 
were ever in any degree difficult to make out while in the 
bare open plains was when they laid down, when of course 20 
the countershading was at a minimum cornpared to when 
they were standing up; the resting antelope looking like 
some inanimate object. But in the open, even where ly- 
ing down the antelope were watchful, and trusted in no 
way to concealment; only the very young fawns sought 2S 
safety in trving to escape observation, lying motionless 
vaih head and neck outstretched. 

It was instructive to study the habits of the oribi under 
changed conditions. The oribi is a small, graceful, swift 
antelope, well countershaded, with a neutral tinted back, 30 
and no advertising marks. Where the grass is long its 
habits are substantially those of the reed buck, stein-buck 



298 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

and dyker; it lies close, trusting to the protection of the 
thick cover, and is very difficult to see. But when the 
grass has been burned, unlike the stein-buck and dyker 
it takes to the bare open plains, and shows itself as much at 
5 home on them as if it were a gazelle. Under these changed 
conditions it ceases to make any effort to conceal itseK, 
or to trust in any way to concealment for protection, 
relying purely on its eyesight, wariness, and speed. Al- 
though without such advertising markings as those of 

10 the Tommy Gazelle, the oribi becomes conspicuous, sim- 
ply because any animal is conspicuous when on a bare 
plain, the ^^ counter-gradation^^ of so-called obliterative 
shadings entirely failing to conceal any creature, when 
it alone is in question. Where fire had passed over the 

15 plains shooting oribi was like shooting the small gazelle; 
the httle creature was easy to make out a long way off, 
but great care was needful in order to stalk it within 
rather long rifle range without being noticed. 

Of the game habitually seen on the plains I have already 

20 spoken of the elephant, rhinoceros, and then the buffalo, 
all of which are also found — and in places much more fre- 
quently found — in forest or dense jungle. The giraffe 
is ordinarily a beast of the open plains, feeding where 
there is a sparse growth of thorn trees. Mr. Thayer states 

25 that the giraffe's countershading and pattern ^^ adequately 
obliterate" it. As a matter of fact the giraffe is never 
'^adequately obliterated" by countershading or colora- 
tion pattern, or by anything else. It is, except the ele- 
phant, the most conspicuous of all animals. Its size and 

30 shape advertise it unerringly to the dullest sighted lion 
or native hunter; it can escape observation only if at such 
a distance that no detail of its coloration would by any 



CONCEALING COLORATION 299 

chance be visible. The giraffe never under any circum- 
stances seeks to avoid observation. Its one concern is to 
be so placed that it can itself observe any possible foe. 
We often found it in the same country with the rhinoc- 
eros, a monocolored beast; and in speaking of leopards 5 
and giraffe (beasts by the way, which it is as absurd to 
treat together as so to treat lions and elephants) Mr. 
Thayer especially dwells on their invisibility as compared 
with beasts which are ^'monochrome objects.'^ But the 
rhinoceros more often eluded hasty observation than did lo 
the giraffe, and was less often seen at a very long dis- 
tance, simply because the height and shape of the giraffe, 
and the fact that it hardly ever lies down, made it the 
more conspicuous object of the two. Any animal, of any 
size, shape or color, may under certain circumstances is 
escape observation, and a man of poor or untrained vision 
may fail to see animals which could not possibly elude 
keen eyes, brute or human, if accustomed to the wilder- 
ness. But save under wholly exceptional circumstances 
no brute or human foe of the giraffe could possibly fail to 20 
see the huge creature if fairly close by; and at a distance 
the pattern of the coloration would be lost. The giraffe 
owes nothing to concealment; its coloration has not the 
shghtest concealing or obliterative effect so far as its foes 
are concerned. ' 25 

The zebra has also, very absurdly, been taken as an 
example of '^ concealing coloration.^' Men unused to the 
consideration of the subject are often surprised when they 
^0 outdoors to discern how difficult it is to see any animal — 
just as a raw city-bred recruit, during his first campaigns, 30 
finds it difficult to locate even a civilized foe, and impos- 
sible to locate a savage foe, such as an Indian. The more 



300 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

conspicuous the animal the greater is the surprise of the 
average man when he fails to find it as conspicuous in the 
landscape as he had supposed; he thinks of a zebra, for in- 
stance, as jumping to the eye as it does in a menagerie; 
5 and when he finds this not to be the case, he goes to the 
opposite extreme and supposes that the zebra^s coloration 
is concealing. As a matter of fact it is not concealing, 
it is highly advertising, when close at hand; but when 
over three or four hundred yards off the black and white 

10 stripes merge together, and the coat becomes mono- 
colored, but catches the sunlight in such shape as still to 
render the bearer conspicuous. The narrow stripes of the 
big Grevey's zebra fade together at a shorter distance 
than is the case with the broader stripes of the smaller 

15 z^c'^ra; the broad bands on the rump of the latter can be 
seen L.t a long distance. The zebra is purely a beast of the 
open pla;ix:'s; it never seeks to conceal itself, but trusts al- 
ways to seeix ^t; its foes. When under or among thin 
leaved, scattered thorn trees it is still usually conspicuous ; 

20 although now and il/^n a peculiar light and shadow effect 
may conceal it. It never ^r^p- ^'^.v. ./ ciiick cover save at 
drinking places, and then only if it is unavoidable; it does 
not come down stealthily to drink, but openly and warily, 
always on the watch and continually galloping off on false 

25 alarms; it returns to the plains as soon as it has drank; 
and as such an animal can never escape observation when 
in motion, and as it is never motionless when at or near 
the drinldng places, it is impossible that its coloration 
can in any way conceal it at such times. Mr. Thayer's 

30 ingenious theories of how all the various stripings on a 
zebra obliterate it are without the smallest foundation in 
fact. So far as the coloration of the zebra has any effect 



CONCEALING COLORATION 301 

at all, as regards beasts of prey, it is an advertising, not a 
concealing, effect. The wildebeest and topi, which are 
found in compan}^ with it, are more conspicuous; the 
hartebeests sometimes more and sometimes less, accord- 
ing to the sunlight; the eland and oryx and gazelle less. 5 
A moment's thought ought to show Mr. Thayer and his 
adherents that animals so differently colored as these, 
all leading their hves under similar conditions, cannot 
possibly all be concealingl}^ colored. As a matter of fact 
none of them owe their safety to concealing coloration, lo 
and the majority of them are advertisingly colored. In 
East Africa the lion prej^s chiefly on zebra and harte- 
beest, which live under precisely the same conditions, 
have the same habits and associate in the same herds; 
yet two more differently colored animals cannot be im- is 
agined, and neither is concealed in the slightest degree by 
its coloration. Among the hunter-naturalists to whom 
we owe most of our knowledge of the enthrallingly inter- 
esting life-histories of African big game. Captain Stigand 
comes second only to Mr. Selous. When I WTote of pro- 20 
tective coloration in ^^ African Game Trails,'' I had had 
opportunity only to glance at Stigand's admirable book 
on the game of British East Africa. In this he discusses 
the subject in masterly fashion, and with a knowledge 
that could only come to a trained big game hunter and 25 
field naturalist gifted with exceptionally keen powers of 
observation and analysis. I quote a few lines: ^^Very 
few animals seem to rely on protective coloration as a 
means of escaping observation, however they may be 
colored. They appear to rely on fleetness of foot, quick- 30 
ness of eye and ear, or on scenting powers . . . (the ani- 
mals that do trust to hiding) seem to rely more on cover 



302 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

and concealment or partial concealment than on any great 
similarity to natural objects . . . even if (the larger game 
of the plains) were perfect examples of protective har- 
mony, which I do not admit, it would avail them little 
5 when their lives are spent in walking about in the open. 
For a moving object even if it assimilates in color to its 
surroundings always catches the eye of a practiced ob- 
server. The two most absurd, but often quoted, examples 
of wonderful instances of protective coloration are the 

10 zebra and the giraffe. It is true that the zebra in very 
long grass is sometimes difficult to pick out, but so is any 
animal almost entirely concealed from view — even an 
elephant if the grass in long enough. In their usual East 
African habitat (the plains) zebras are strikingly con- 

isspicuous, turning from black to white as they move and 
their sides are alternately in shadow or exposed sun- 
light. ... A giraffe near, or even in the far distance, 
when not screened from view, is a most conspicuous ob- 
ject to the practiced eye.'' 



ANIMALS OF CENTRAL BRAZIL ^ 

When I contemplated going on this trip° the first thing 
I did was to get in touch with Dr. Frank M. Chapman of 
the American Museum. I wanted to get from him in- 
formation as to what we could do down there and whether 
it would be worth while for the Museum to send a couple 5 
of naturahsts with me. On any trip of this kind — on any 
kind of a trip I have ever taken — the worth of the trip 
depends not upon one man but upon the work done by 
several men in co-operation. This journey to South 
America would have been not worth the taking, had it lo 
not been for ths two naturalists from the American 
Museum who were with me, and for the Brazilian officers^ 
skilled in cartographical work who joined the expedition. 

I thought of making the trip a zoological one only, when 
I started from New York, but when I reached Rio Janeiro is 
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Lauro Mliller, whom 
I had kno\^^I before, told me that he thought there was 
a chance of our doing a piece of geographical work of 
importance. In the course of the work of the telegraph 
commission under Colonel Rondon, a Brazihan engineer, 20 
there had been discovered the headwaters of a river 
running north through the center of Brazil. To go down 
that river, and put it on the map would be interesting, 
but he wanted to tell me that one cannot guarantee what 
may happen on unknown rivers — there might be some 25 

^ A lecture delivered before the members of the American 
Museum of Natural History, December 10, 1914. Reprinted 
by permission from the American Museum Journal^ vol. xv, 
page 35, (February, 1915.) 

303 



304 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

surprises before we got through. Of course we jumped at 
the chance, and at once arranged to meet Colonel Rondon 
and his assistants at the head of the Paraguay, to go down 
from there with them. 

5 We touched at Bahia and Rio Janeiro and then came 
down by railway across southern Brazil and Uruguay to 
Buenos Aires and went through the Argentine over to 
Chili. We traveled south through Chili and then crossed 
the Andes. That sounds a very elaborate thing to do, but 

10 as a matter of fact it was pure pleasure. It was a wonder- 
ful trip. The pass through wliich we crossed was hke the 
Yosemite, with snow-capped volcanic mountains all 
about. Afterward we went across Patagonia by auto- 
mobile and then started up the Paraguay. Our work did 

15 not begin until we were inside the Tropic of Capricorn. 
We took mules at Tapirapoan and went up through the 
high central plateau of Brazil — not a fertile country but 
I have no question but that great industrial communities 
will grow up there. 

20 The hard work on the unknown river came during the 
first six weeks. In those forty-two days we made only an 
average of about a mile and a half a day and toward the 
end we were not eating any more than was necessary and 
that was largely monkey and parrot. The parrots were 

25 pretty good when they were not tough but I can assure 
Mr. Hornaday that he could leave me alone in the monkey 
cage at the New York Zoological Gardens with perfect 
safety. 

Both of the naturalists who were with me and I myself 

30 were interested primarily in mammalogy and ornithology. 
We were not entomologists and studied only those insects 
that forced themselves upon our attention. There were 



ANIMALS OF CENTRAL BRAZIL 305 

two or three types that were welcome. The butterflies 
were really wonderful. I shall never forget the spectacle 
in certain places on the Unknown River where great azure 
blue butterflies would fly about up and down through the 
glade or over the river. Some of the noises made by in- 5 
sects were extraordinary. One insect similar to a katydid 
made a noise that ended with a sound like a steamboat 
whistle. 

We found the mosquitoes bad in only two or three places. 
On the Paraguay marshes there w^ere practically no mos- lo 
quitoes. In that great marsh country where I should sup- 
pose mosquitoes would swarm, there were scarcely any. 
Our trouble was chiefly ^vith gnats. These little flies were 
at times a serious nuisance. We had to wear gauntlets and 
helmets and we had to tie the bottom of our trouser legs. 15 
When we stopped on one occasion to build canoes, two 
or three of our camaradas were so crippled with the bites 
of the gnats that they could hardly walk. The wasps 
and stinging bees were also very obnoxious and at times 
fairly dangerous. There were ants we called foraging 20 
ants that moved in dense columns and killed every living 
tiling that could not get out of the way. If an animal is 
picketed in the line of march of these foraging ants, they 
are likely to kill it in short time. 

There is also a peculiar ant called the leaf ant which 25 
doesn't eat a man but devours his possessions instead. I 
met with a tragedy one night myself. We had come down 
the Unknown River and had lost two or three canoes 
and had to portage whatever we had over the mountain. 
We had to throw away everything that was not absolutely 30 
necessary. I reduced my own baggage to one change of 
clothing. We got into camp late and Cherrie and I had 



306 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

our two cots close together and did not get the fly up un- 
til after dark. My helmet had an inside lining of green 
and I had worn a red handkerchief around my neck. At 
night I put my spectacles and the handkerchief in the 
5 hat. The next morning I looked out of bed preparing 
to get my spectacles. I saw a red and green line. It was 
moving. There was a procession of these leaf-bearing ants 
with sections of my handkerchief and hat. I had had one 
spare pair of socks and one spare set of underclothing and 

10 1 needed them both. By morning I had part of one sock 
and the leg and waistband of the underwear and that was 
all. It is amusing to look back at but it was not amusing 
at the time. 

The most interesting fish that we became acquainted 

15 with was called the ''cannibal fish/' ° the ''man-eating 
fish.'' It is about the size of our shad with a heavily 
undershot jaw and very sharp teeth. So far as I know, 
it is the only fish in the world that attacks singly or in 
shoals animals much larger than itself. Cannibal fishes 

20 swarm in most of the rivers of the region we passed 
through, in most places not very dangerous, in others 
having the custom of attacking man or animals, so that 
it is dangerous for anyone to go into the water. Blood 
maddens them. If a duck is shot, they will pull it to pieces 

25 in a very few minutes. 

This side of Corumba a boy who had been in swimming 
was attacked in midstream by these fishes and before 
rehef could get to him, he had not only been killed but 
half eaten. Two members of our party suffered from them. 

30 Colonel Rondon after carefully examining a certain spot 
in the river went into the water and one of these fishes 
bit off his little toe. On another occasion on the Unknown 



ANIMALS OF CENTRAL BRAZIL 307 

River,° Mr. Cherrie went into the water thinking he could 
take his bath right near shore and one of the fish bit 
a piece out of his leg. 

One of the most extraordinary things we saw was this. 
On one occasion one of us shot a crocodile. It rushed 5 
back into the water. The fish attacked it at once and 
they drove that crocodile out of the water back to the men 
on the bank. It was less afraid of the men than the 
fish. 

We were interested one day in a certain big catfish, 10 
like any other big catfish except that it had a monkey 
inside of it. I had never heard that a catfish could catch 
monkeys but it proved to be a fact. The catfish lives at 
the bottom of the water. The monkeys come down on 
the ends of branches to drink and it seems to be no un- 15 
common thing for the fish to come to the surface and 
attack the monkey as it stoops to drinli:. Our Brazilian 
friends told us that in the Amazon there is a gigantic 
catfish nine feet long. The natives are more afraid of it 
than of the crocodile because the crocodile can be seen 20 
but the catfish is never seen until too late. In the villages, 
poles are stacked in the water so that women can get 
their jars filled with water, these stockades of poles 
keeping out the giant crocodile and catfish. I had never 
seen in any book any allusions to the fact that there is 25 
a man-eating fish of this type in the Amazon. 

One day when we were going down the Unknown River 
Mr. Cherrie and I in the same canoe, we saw a flying fish. 
Of course everyone knows about the flying fish on the 
ocean but I had no idea there were flying fish on the 30 
South American streams. I very much wish that some 
ichthyologist would go down to South America and come 



308 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

back with not not only a collection of the fishes but also 
full notes on their Hfe histories. 

We did not see very many snakes, I suppose only 
about twenty venomous ones. The most venomous are 

5 those somewhat akin to our rattle-snakes but with no 
rattles. One of the most common is the jararaca, known 
in Martinique as the fer-de-lance. One of the biggest 
is called the bushmaster and attains a length of about 
ten feet. These snakes are very poisonous and very dan- 

logerous. The mussurama is another South American 
snake, and it lives on poisonous snakes. It habitually 
lolls and eats dangerous reptiles, its most common prey 
being the jararaca. I saw the feat performed at a lab- 
oratory where poisonous snakes are being studied to secure 

15 antidotes to the poisons and to develop enemies to the 
snakes themselves. Such an enemy is this mussurama 
which must be like our king snake — but larger. The 
king snake is a particularly pleasant snake; it is friendly 
toward mankind, not poisonous and can be handled 

20 freely. The scientists at the laboratory brought out a big 
good-natured mussurama which I held between my arm 
and coat. Then they brought out a fairly large fer-de- 
lance about nine inches shorter than the mussurama and 
warning me to keep away, put it on the table. Then they 

25 told me to put my snake where it could get at the fer-de- 
lance. I put down my snake on the table and it glided 
up toward the coiled fer-de-lance. My snake was perfectly 
free from excitement and I did not suppose it meant to 
do anything, that it was not hungry. It put its ^^nose'^ 

30 against the body of the fer-de-lance and moved toward the 
head. The fer-de-lance's temper was aroused and it 
coiled and struck. The return blow was so quick that- 



ANIMALS OF CENTRAL BRAZIL 309 

I could not see just what happened. The mussurama had 
the fer-de-lance by the lower jaw, the mouth wide open. 
The latter struck once again. After that it made no further 
effort to defend itself in any way. The poisonous snake 
is a highly specialized creature and practically helpless 5 
when once its peculiarly specialized traits are effectively 
nuUified by an opponent. The mussurama killed the 
snake and devoured it by the simple process of crawHng 
outside of it. Many snakes will not eat if people interfere 
with them, but the mussurama had no prejudices in this lo 
respect. We wanted to take a photograph of it while 
eating, so I took both snakes up and had them photo- 
graphed against a white cloth while the feast went on 
uninterruptedly. 

Birds and mammals interested me chiefly, however. 1 15 
am only an amateur ornithologist but I saw a great deal 
there that w^ould be of interest to any of us who care for 
birds. For instance there are two hundred and thirteen 
families of birds very plentiful there, either wholly un- 
known to us, or at least very few of them known. 20 

The most conspicuous birds I saw were members of the 
family of tyrant flycatchers, like our kingbird, great 
crested flycatcher and wood pewee. All are birds that 
perch and swoop for insects. One species, the bientevido, 
is a big bird like our kingbird, but fiercer and more power- 25 
ful than any northern kingbird. One day I saw him catch- 
ing fish and Httle tadpoles and also I found that he would 
sometimes catch small mice. Another kind of tyrant, the 
red-backed tyrant, is a black bird with reddish on the 
middle of the back. We saw this species first out on the 30 
bare Patagonian plains. It runs fast over the ground 
exactly like our pippit or longspur. 



310 ROOSEVELT'S WRITINGS 

Curved-bill wood-hewers, birds the size and somewhat 
the coloration of veeries, but with long, slender sickle-bills 
were common about the gardens and houses. 

Most of the birds build large nests. The oven-birds 

5 build big, domed nests of mud. Telegraph poles offer 
splendid opportunities for building nests. Sometimes 
for miles every telegraph pole would have an oven-bird^s 
nest upon it. These birds come around the houses. They 
look a little bit like wood thrushes and are very interest- 

10 ing in that way they have all kinds of individual ways. The 
exceedingly beautiful honey creepers are like clusters of 
jet. They get so familiar that they come into the house and 
hop on the edge of the sugar bowl. 

The people living on many of the ranches in Brazil 

15 make us rather ashamed for our own people. The ranch- 
men protect the birds and it is possible to see great jabiru 
storks nesting not fifty yards from the houses, and not 
shy. 

Most of the birds in Brazil are not musical although 

20 some of them have very prettty whistles. The oven-bird 
has an attractive call. The bell-bird of the gray hue 
(contrasted with the white bell-bird) has a ringing 
whistle which sounds from the topmost branches of the 
trees. 

25 The mammals were a great contrast to what I had seen 
in Africa. Africa is the country for great game. There 
is nothing like that in South America. The animals in 
South America are of interest to the naturalist more than 
to the person who is traveling through the country and 

30 takes the ordinary layman's point of view. Only two of 
the animals found there are formidable. One of these 
is the jaguar, the king of South American game, ranking 



ANIMALS OF CENTRAL BRAZIL 311 

on an equality with the noblest beasts of the chase of 
North America, second only to the huge and fierce crea- 
tures which stand at the head of the big game of Africa and 
Asia. The great spotted creatures are very beautiful. 
Like all cats they are easily killed with a pack of hounds, 5 
but they are very difficult to come upon otherwise. They 
will charge men and sometimes become man-eaters. 

Another big manmial of the Brazilian forest is the 
white-lipped peccary. The white-lipped peccaries herd 
together in the dense jungles in packs of thirty or forty lo 
or sometimes as many as two or three hundred. They 
are formidable creatures. The young ones may be no 
larger than a setter dog but they have tremendous tusks. 
They surge and charge together and I think that they 
may legitimately be called dangerous. On one occasion 15 
Cherrie was hunting peccaries and the peccaries treed him. 
He was up there four hours. He found those four hours 
a little monotonous, I judge. I never had any adventure 
with them myself. They make queer moaning grunts. 
We spent a couple of days in getting the specimens that 20 
we brought back. We had four dogs with us. The ranch- 
man had loaned them to us although I doubt whether 
they really wished to let us have them, for the big peccary 
is a murderous" foe of dogs. One of them frankly refused 
to let his dogs come, explaining that the fierce wild swine 25 
were '^very badly brought up" and that respectable dogs 
and men ought not to go near them. We might just as 
well not have taken any dogs, however. Two of them as 
soon as they smelled the peccaries went home. The third 
one made for a thicket about a hundred yards away and 30 
stayed there until he was sure which would come out 
ahead. The fourth advanced only when there was a man 



312 ROOSEVELTS WRITINGS 

ahead of him. The dangerous Httle peccaries made fierce 
moaning grunts on their wa}^ through the jungle and rat- 
tled their tusks like castanets whenever we came up. 
Armadillos were unexpectedly interesting because 
5 they ran so fast. Once on a jaguar hunt we came upon 
two of the big nine-banded armadillos, which are called 
the ^^big armadillos." The dogs raced at them. One of 
the armadillos got into the thick brush. The other ran 
for a hundred yards with the dogs close upon it, wheeled 

10 and came back like a bullet right through the pack. Its 
wedged-shaped snout and armored body made the dogs 
totally unable to seize or stop it. It came back right 
toward us and got into the thick brush and so escaped. 
Other species of armadillo do not run at all. 

15 The anteaters, most extraordinary creatures of this 
latter-day world, are found only in South America. The 
anteater is about the size of a small black bear and has 
a long narrow toothless snout, a long bushy tail and very 
powerful claws on its fore feet. It walks on the sides of 

20 its fore feet vdth the claws curved in under the foot. These 
powerful claws make it a formidable enemy for the dogs. 
But it goes very slowly. Anteaters were continually out 
in the open marshes where we got the two specimens that 
-we sent to the Museum. They were always on muddy 
ground, and in the papjTus swamp we found them in 

25 several inches of water. I do not see how they continue 
to exist in a country with jaguars and pumas. They are 
too slow to run away and they are very conspicuous and 
make no effort to conceal themselves. 

The great value of our trip will be shown only when 

30 full studies have been made of the twenty-five hundred 
and more specimens of birds and mammals brought back. 



ANIMALS OF CENTRAL BRAZIL 313 

We will be able to give for the first time an outline of the 
mammalogy and ornithology of central Brazil. 

Probably the most important feature of the trip was 
going down the Unknown River, because, of course, at 
this stage of geographical historv^ it is a rare thing to 5 
be able to put on the map a new river, a river never 
explored, a river the length of the Rhine of which not a 
line is to be found on any map. 

It was a journey well worth taking, a i'ough trip of 
course, but I shall always be more grateful than I can say lo 
to Professor Osborn and Dr. Chapman of the American 
Museum for ha\dng sent Mr. Cherrie and Mr. Miller with 
me, thus enabling me to take part in a zoo -geographical 
reconnaissance of a part of the Brazilian wilderness. 



NOTES 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

In 1913 Roosevelt published his autobiography under 
the title Theodore Roosevelt^ An Autobiographij, ^' Natu- 
rally/^ he wrote in the Preface, '^ there are chapters in 
my autobiography which cannot now be written/^ but in- 
complete though the book is, it covers the greater part 
of his career. Appearing as it did while he was still active 
in politics, the book is in large measure a defense of polit- 
ical acts and policies. Still there is a great deal that is 
purely personal, and it must be said that if one could read 
but one book of Roosevelt^s, it would be the book to select 
for this purpose. The chapters represented in this book 
have been condensed without destroying their connected- 
ness. 

Boyhood and Youth 

1 : 5. Curtis. George William Curtis (1824-92) was 
an American writer noted for his pleasing sketches and 
essays. Among these was the Potiphar Papers (1853), a 
series of satirical sketches of New York society. 

2 : 13. moujik. A Russian peasant. 

2 : 14. malachite. A green stone, the finest specimens 
of which come from Siberian mines. 

2 : 28. Grant. Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85) was the 
commander-in-chief of the Union forces in the latter part 
of the Civil Vv^ar. 

.315 



316 NOTES 

3 :21. Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt, Senior (1831- 
1878), was a glass importer in New York City, widely 
known for his philanthropy and activity in charitable and 
reform movements. 

5:11. Martha Bulloch. On his mother's side, Roose- 
velt was descended from some of the best-known families 
of the South, combining in his veins the blood of both 
Scotch-Irish and Huguenot ancestors. His great-great- 
grandfather, Archibald Bulloch, was a member of the Con- 
tinental Congress, and the first State Governor of Georgia. 
One of his great-grandfathers, Daniel Stewart, was a 
brigadier-general in the Continental army. His mother, 
Martha Bulloch, married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., at her 
father's home at Roswell, Cobb County, Georgia, in 1853. 
Mrs. Roosvelt's brother, James D. Bulloch, was an officer 
of the Confederate navy, and acted during the greater part 
of the war as a secret agent for the Confederacy in Eng- 
land, where he contracted for the purchase of the privateers 
Florida and Georgia. 

6 : 13. ** Unreconstructed.'* The expression means 
that Roosevelt's mother never gave up her belief in the 
justness of the political ideals for w^hich her section, the 
South, contended in the Civil War. 

6 : 16. Boone and Crockett. The horses were named 
for Daniel Boone (1735-1820) and David Crockett (1786- 
1836), both famous American backwoodsmen and pioneers. 

6 : 18. Buena Vista. The battle of Buena Vista, fought 
February 22 and 23, 1847, resulted in a decisive victory 
for the Americans over the Mexicans. 

6 : 20. '* Br*er Rabbit *' stories. The animal stories 
popular among the negroes make the rabbit oftentimes 
the hero. Many of these stories were first collected by 



NOTES 317 

Joel Chandler Harris and published in his ^* Uncle Remus " 
books. Roosevelt^s aunt, however, had learned the stories 
first-hand from Georgia negroes. 

6 :23. ** Harper's.*' Harper's Monthly is one of the 
oldest and most distinguished of American literary pe- 
riodicals. 

6:24. genius. Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908). The 
negro folk-tales which Harris collected and published were 
told by an imaginarj^ negro named Uncle Remus. Hence 
the name was applied to the writer, although it was not 
in any wise the author's nom de plume. 

7:11. interest in natural history. For a fuller ac- 
count of Roosevelt's early interest in natural history, see 
the selection given in this book entitled '' My Life as a 
Naturalist.'' 

7 : 19. Reid's Books. Mayne Reid (1818-83). An 
English writer of hunting romances and stories of adven- 
ture. He himself led a wandering and adventurous life, 
and his books often are based on his own experiences. Al- 
though born in England, he spent many years of his life 
in the United States, and his books oftentimes have that 
country as a background. In his later years he returned 
to England. Some of his best known books are The Rifle 
Rangers (1850), Scalp Hunters (1851), White Chief (1859), 
Afloat in the Forest (1865) and The Castaways (1870). 

9 : 4. Audubon's. John James Audubon (1780-1851) 
was an American naturalist who especially devoted him- 
self to the study of birds. He eventually gave up all busi- 
ness pursuits and spent his time roaming hither and thither 
in the forests making observation of bird and animal life. 
His greatest production. Birds of North America (1831- 
39), consisted of five volumes of drawings and descriptions 



318 NOTES 

of American birds, the drawings, of which there were over 
four hundred, being Hfe-size. 

9 : 5. Mr. Venus *s Shop. The description of the queer, 
cluttered-up shop of this taxidermist and ^' articulator of 
human bones '^ may be found in Chapter VII of Dickens's 
Our Mutual Friend. 

9 : 32. Spencer Baird (1823-87). An American nat- 
uralist who was for many years connected with the Smith- 
sonian Institution. Among the most important of his pub- 
lications were Catalogue of North American Reptiles (1853), 
Birds of North America (1860), Mammals of North America 
(1859), and History of North American Birds (1874-84). 

10 : 4. Europe. Roosevelt's first trip to Europe was 
a short one made when he was ten years old. The second 
one was four years later. His account of it, which is 
here omitted, shows that he devoted much of his time to 
bird collecting, especially while he was in Egypt. 

10 : 16. Harvard. Harvard University at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, is the oldest as well as one of the most in- 
fluential universities in the United States. 

10 : 23. Mr. Cutler. Roosevelt completed his prepa- 
ration for Harvard under Mr. Arthur Cutler, who after- 
wards founded the Cutler School in New York. 

10 : 24. Hill. Adams Sherman Hill (1833-1910) was 
for many years professor of rhetoric in Harvard Univer- 
sity. He was a remarkably stimulating teacher in this 
subject. 

10 : 26. Eliot. Charles William Eliot (1834-), has been 
for many years one of the foremost figures in Amer- 
ican education. During the larger part of his career he 
was president of Harvard University, a position which he 
filled with notable distinction until his retirement in 1909. 



NOTES 319 

10 : 28. Forensics. College exercises in spoken or 
written discussion. 

11 : 9. Gracchi. Two Roman brothers who were up- 
holders of the interests of the people. The older one, 
Tiberius Sempronius, endeavored to restore to the peasant 
class their small holdings of land. The younger, Caius 
Sempronius, endeavored to establish in Rome more of a 
pure democracy than existed under the aristocratic re- 
publican form of government. Both brothers lost their 
lives in insurrections resulting from their political activ- 
ities, the former in 133 B. C, the latter in 121 B. C. 

12 : 19. Phi Beta Kappa. A Greek letter organization 
existing in many American colleges, admission to which 
is granted upper classmen who attain a superior average 
of scholarship. 

12 : 22. Wilson. Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) was 
an American ornithologist. He emigrated from Scotland 
to the United States where for several years he worked as 
weaver, peddler, and school teacher. Finally his interest 
in birds led him to undertake to make a comprehensive 
collection of drawings of x\merican birds. To collect ma- 
terial and gather subscriptions, the author travelled ex- 
tensively in all parts of the country and endured many 
hardships. Seven volumes of his projected work were pre- 
pared by him during his lifetime, but his death left to 
other hands the completing of the work. 

12 : 23. Coues. Eliot Coues (1842-99) was an Amer- 
ican naturalist particularly known for his researches in 
ornithology. 

12 : 23. Merriam. Clinton Hart Merriam (1855-). 
An American naturalist. From 1885-1910, he was chief 
of the United States Biological Survey. This position he 



320 NOTES 

resigned in order to conduct biological investigations 
under a special trust fund established by Mrs. E. H. 
Harriman. 

12 : 24. Chapman. Frank Michler Chapman (1864-). 
An American ornithologist. He has written many books 
about birds of a popular scientific character. 

12 : 24. Hornaday. William Temple Homaday 
(1854-). An American zoologist who has been since 1896 
director of the New York Zoological Park. He has been 
active in promoting game preserves and new laws for the 
protection of wild Hfe generally. He has spent much time 
in travelling in the United States and other countries on 
scientific expeditions and has written delightfully about 
his experiences. 

15: 12. Dark Ages. A designation sometimes given to 
the Middle Ages (approximately 476-1453), or, more es- 
pecially to the earlier part of this period. It was the time 
of feudalism and civilization was generally ruder and more 
barbaric than during the preceding Classical Age. In the 
political theories of the time the individual was held to be 
higher than the state. 

The Vigor of Life 

16 : 6. Valley Forge. The Pennsylvania village where 
Washington and the American Army passed the winter of 
1777-78 amid great privations. 

16 : 7. Morgan's riflemen. The Revolutionary rifle- 
men under General Daniel Morgan (1736-1802) fought 
bravely at the battle of Saratoga in 1777. 

16 : 16. Moosehead Lake. A large lake, about thirty- 
five miles long, in Northern Maine. 

17 : 11. Heenan. In 1860, there was an international 



NOTES 321 

boxing bout between Tom Sayers, the English champion, 
and John Heenan. The contest was declared a draw, 
when, after two hours of fighting, the spectators rushed 
into the ring and ended the fight. 

18 : 27. Aroostook. A river in northern Maine. 

18 : 29. Matterhom. A peak of the Alps, noted for 
its steepness. It is 14,703 feet high. 

18 : 30. Jungfrau. One of the chief peaks in the Alps, 
having a height of 13,670 feet. 

19 : 2. Sagamore Hill. Roosevelt's home on Long 
Island. See page 67 for an account of the origin of the 
name. 

19 : 4. South African War. From 1899-1902, there 
was a conflict for supremacy in South Africa between 
Great Britain and the Boer republics of the Transvaal and 
the Orange Free State. The outcome was a victory for 
the British. 

19 : 7. Stewart Edward White (1873-), the au- 
thor of several books on Western life, is himself an ex- 
perienced hunter and woodsman. 

20 : 1. *' buck fever.'* Nervous excitement on the 
part of a hunter, especially an inexperienced one, when 
he finds a deer or other game approaching. 

22 : 11. Governor. Roosevelt was Governor of New 
York State from 1899 to 1900. 

In the fall of 1898, politics in New York State were in 
an upheaval. Governor Black's administration was un- 
popular, and unless a candidate could be found so popular 
on his own account as to pull the Republicans through, 
the chances were that the Democrats would repeat their 
success of the past year. Because of the widespread popu- 
larity that had come to Roosevelt in connection with hia 



322 NOTES 

Rough Rider regiment and its part in the Spanish- 
American War, he seemed the most suitable man, and the 
Republican State Convention nominated him. After an 
exciting campaign between Augustus Van Wyck, the 
Democratic candidate, Theodore Bacon, the independent 
candidate, and Roosevelt, the latter was elected. 

Of Roosevelt's administration, it has been said that his 
two years at Albany saw more constructive and recon- 
structive legislation placed on the statute books than the 
entire decade which had pieceded it. The Civil Service 
Law was amended and enforced strictly — ^^ putting the 
starch into it," Roosevelt called it. He personally in- 
vestigated the tenement-house problem of New York City, 
and then secured the passage of a radical act that went 
far toward its solution. Among the laws enacted affecting 
the laboring classes were an eight-hour law, a law provid- 
ing for the licensing of employment agencies, and stringent 
factory laws, which, by the establishment of a licensing 
system, practically wiped out the worst abuses of the 
" sweat-shops.'' 

No piece of legislation was more earnestly pressed by 
Governor Roosevelt than the Corporation Franchise Tax 
law. It was his first step in the development of a policy 
which he afterwards advocated in a wider field — namely, 
the requirement that wealthy corporations should be re- 
quired to pay their just proportion of the expenses of run- 
ning the Government. 

As the time drew near for the Republican National 
Convention in 1900, it was evident that there was a strong 
movement on foot to nominate Roosevelt for Vice- 
President on the same ticket with President McKinley. 
Those who were engaged in promoting his candidacy were 



NOTES 323 

not, however, all actuated by the same motives. Espe- 
cially was this true of the advocates of his nomination in 
his own State. During his administration he had been 
a thorn in the flesh to Senator Piatt, the Republican 
leader of New York State, and the machine politicians. 
It was their desire to eliminate him from State politics, 
and shelve him in the office of Vice-President for the time 
being at least. Roosevelt perceived this intention and 
was very reluctant to accept the nomination. But party 
pressure brought him in the end to consent to the plan. 
In the fall he and McKinley were easily elected. 

23 : 5. Single stick. The art of attack and defence 
with single sticks, i, e., a staff fitted with a guard like that 
of a saber. 

23 : 5. Wood. Leonard Wood (1860-). See Roose- 
velt^s account of his early career, page 60. In recent 
years he has risen to the highest rank in the American 
Army. 

23 : 13. jiu-jitzu. A form of wrestling practiced by 
the Japanese. 

23 : 27. Hayes. An American athlete who won the 
Marathon race in the international Olympic games of 
1908, held at London. 

24 : 4. ** The Strenuous Life.'' An extract from this 
address may be found in this volume, page 166. The 
entire address may be found in Roosevelt's book entitled 
The Strenuous Life. 

24 : 8. Manchurian. The military operations of the 
Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) were chiefly on Man- 
churian soil. 

25 : 2. **Ode on a Grecian Urn." A notable poem 
by John Keats (1795-1821). 



324 NOTES 

25 : 2. The Gettysburg Speech. Lincoln's speech de- 
livered at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Ceme- 
tery, November 19, 1863. 

25 : 3. Frederick. Frederick the Great (1620-1688) 
King of Prussia, won at Leuthen, December 5, 1757, a 
notable victory over an Austrian army under Prince 
Charles of Lorraine. 

25 : 3. Nelson. Admiral Nelson (1758-1805), in com- 
mand of the British fleet, won the famous victory over 
the French in the battle off Cape Trafalgar, October 19, 
1805. 

26 : 14. Marryat's books. Frederick Marryat (1792- 
1848) was an English novelist who wrote many stories 
of sea life. He was himself an officer in the English navy 
for many years. Peter Simple and Mr, Midshipman Easy 
are among his best known stories. 

Entering Politics 

Roosevelt began his political career under the follow- 
ing circumstances: In the fall of 1881, he was nominated 
by the Republicans of the old Twenty-first District of 
New York City as their candidate for the state assembly. 
The nomination came to him unexpectedly and un- 
sought. There had been a revolt against the district 
leader, '^Jake'^ Hess, in which 3^oung Roosevelt had 
taken an active part. Hess^s candidate was turned down 
and the opposition settled upon Roosevelt, less than a 
year tod a half out of college, and with no political rec- 
ord to hamper him. Roosevelt had already identified 
himself with the reform element in the city, and be- 
longed to a club devoted to the furthering the principles 
of free trade, which he had accepted in college, but as 



NOTES 325 

he was "regular" so far as party affiliations were con- 
cerned, Hess acquiesced in his choice. After a spirited 
campaign, Roosevelt was elected. 

28 • 3. Thayer. Ezra Ripley Thayer (1866-1915) was 
an American la^vyer and educator. For many years he 
was Dane professor of law at Harvard University and 
dean of the Law School. Roosevelt studied law at tlie 
Columbia University Law School and in the office of his 
uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt. 

28 • 8. Caveat emptor. A legal phrase signifying that 
the purchaser of land or goods takes his chances as to the 
title or qualitv of the property acquired by him. 

30 : 7. Elected to the Legislature. For awhile, as 
Roosevelt states in his Autohiogra-phy , he took little part 
in the debates, but watched and learned. Suddenly, 
about the middle of the session, he dumbfounded the 
party leaders bv demanding the investigation of a certain 
iudge He was voted down and his friends urged him to 
drop the matter, assuring him that such independerice 
would mean his political death. He persisted m his de- 
mand stubbornly day after day until he got a majority 
(rf the Assembly with him, and the investigation was pro- 
vided for. 

This was his first personal political victory, and from 
then on in the Legislature, he was a force to be reckoned 
with. In 1882, he was reelected by a large majority, de- 
spite the fact that this was a year Which saw the Demo- 
cratic partv triumphant in the state, especially m the 
election of Grover Cleveland as Governor. In 1883, Roose- 
velt was elected for a third term. During his second term 
he was the Republican floor leader, and in his third, was 
a candidate for the Speakership, but was defeated. 



326 NOTES 

The struggle over the Republican Presidential nomina- 
tion of 1884 began in New York on the choice of delegates 
to the State Convention. Roosevelt had to defeat his old 
opponent, Jacob Hess, before he himself could secure a 
place as delegate to the State Convention at Utica. This 
he was able to do, and he went to the Convention an en- 
thusiastic partisan of Edmunds, of Vermont, who was the 
candidate supported by the reform element of the Re- 
publican party. The Convention was divided between 
supporters of Arthur, Blaine, and Edmunds, and the dele- 
gates to the National Convention, of whom Roosevelt was 
one, were uninstructed. 

In the proceedings of the National Convention at 
Chicago, he took a prominent part. During the bitter 
struggle among these three candidates for the nomination, 
he worked and voted steadfastly for Edmunds, and was 
one of those who voted for him upon the final ballot which 
gave the nomination to Blaine. 

After the Convention Roosevelt went West to his ranch 
in North Dakota to think over the situation in quiet and 
make up his mind what course to take. Many of his friends 
among the reform element in his party were announcing 
that they would carry their opposition to the nominee, 
Blaine, to the extent of voting for the Democratic candidate. 

But to Roosevelt the idea of breaking with his party 
did not appear to be tenable. Having reached this deci- 
sion he gave out the following public statement: *' I in- 
tend to vote the Republican presidential ticket. A man 
cannot act both without and within the party; he can do 
either, but he cannot possibly do both. I went in with 
my eyes open to do what I could within the party; I did 
my best and got beaten, and I propose to stand by the 



NOTES 327 

result. I am by inheritance and by education a Repub- 
lican; whatever good I have been able to accomplish in 
public life has been accomplished through the Republican 
party; I have acted with it in the past, and I wish to act 
with it in the future/^ Following this declaration he re- 
turned to the East, where he took a rather inactive part 
in the campaign. 

This disappointment in politics together with personal 
reasons led Roosevelt to spend the greater part of the fol- 
lowing years up to 1889, when he accepted the appoint- 
ment as Civil Service Commissioner, in the West on his 
ranch. There he enjoyed to the full outdoor life and found 
time in which to do a good deal of writing. 

30 : 13. Duke of Wellington. Arthur Wellesley, Duke 
of Wellington (1769-1852) was the British general who 
won at the battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815, a decisive 
victory over Napoleon^s army. 

31 : 25. Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) 
was an American statesman who, in the early days of the 
nation when disintegrating tendencies were pronounced, 
contended for a strong, centralized government. 

34 : 11. Josh Billings. The pen name of Henry W. 
Shaw (1818-1885), one of the early American humorists. 
His chief works were his Farmer^ s Allminax (1870-1880), 
Every Boddy^s Friend (1876), and Josh Billings^ Spiee Box 
(1881). 

In Cowboy Land 

38 : 2. Territory of Dakota. In 1889, the large Terri- 
tory of Dakota was divided into two sections and these 
were admitted into the Union as the States of North and 
of South Dakota. 



328 NOTES 

38 : 7. Owen Wister's stories. This American novel- 
ist has written vividly about the Far West which he knew 
from intimate experience. His The Virginian (1902) is 
acknowledged to be one of our best portrayals of Western 
life. For Roosevelt ^s estimate of it, see page 49. 

38 : 8. Frederic Remington's drawings. Frederic 
Remington (1861-1909) was an American artist who em- 
bodied in his drawings and paintings, in a remarkable way 
Western life. He had lived for several years as a cowboy 
on a ranch and had thus absorbed the spirit of Western 
life in a first-hand way. 

38 : 11. Atlantis. A large island, which, according to 
an ancient tradition was at one time situated in the At- 
lantic near the Pillars of Hercules (now in the Strait of 
Gibraltar). 

39 : 28. Duffle-Bag. A bag, usually of canvas, in which 
is carried a sportsman's or camper's outfit. 

40 : 13. Old sledge. A game of cards more generally 
known as all-fours. 

46 : 14. maverick. A Western expression designating 
cattle found without an owner's brand. 

48 : 23. Bryce. Viscount Bryce (1838-) was ambas- 
sador from England to the United States from 1907 to 
1913. 

The Rough RroERS 

55 : 2. Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Roosevelt 
was recalled from his ranch in the fall of 1886 to become 
a candidate for Mayor of New York City. He was the 
nominee of the Independent Committee of One Hundred 
and of the Republican party. His opponents were Henry 
George, running on a Labor and Single-Tax Platform, and 



NOTES 329 

Abram S. Hewitt whom Tammany had nominated. The 
result of the contest was that Hewitt was chosen Mayor. 

In May, 1889, Roosevelt was appointed a member of 
the National Civil Service Commission by President Har- 
rison. He served through Harrison's administration, and 
was retained in office by President Cleveland, whom he 
had helped, ten years before, to establish civil service on 
a firmer basis in New York State. The six years that 
Roosevelt spent in Washington in this position gave him 
splendid training in a wider field than he had hitherto 
entered. Pie won the friendship and regard of public men 
from all parts of the countr}^, and even those who were 
not in entire s>Tnpathy with the reforms he represented 
recognized his sincerity, fairness, and energy. 

Roosevelt resigned from the Civil Service Commission 
in May, 1895, and accepted one of the Police Commis- 
sionerships tendered him by Mayor Strong of New York 
City. Roosevelt was chosen president of the Board, and 
from the first stamped his personality on the Department. 
The new board found the police force in a thoroughly de- 
moralized and disorganized condition, but it was able to 
bring order out of chaos and enforce a strict discipline 
which soon improved the morale of the force. Roosevelt 
resigned his position as Police Commissioner in March, 
1897, to return to Washington as Assistant Secretary of 
the Navy^ 

65 : 3. Lodge. Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-) is a prom- 
inent American politician. He has been United States 
Senator from Massachusetts since 1893. 

58 : 2. Captain Mahan. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840- 
1914) was an eminent American naval officer who wrote 
several important books oh naval history and strategy. 



330 NOTES 

58 : 15. Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was 
the author of the Declaration of Independence and third 
President of the United States. 

60 : 1. the Maine. The blowing up of the United 
States battleship Maine in Havana harbor on the evening 
of February 15, 1898, with the loss of 266 men was the 
critical incident that provoked hostilities between the 
United States and Spain. 

60 : 15. Apaches. One of the Western Indian tribes, 
formerly living chiefly in New Mexico and Arizona, which 
gave a great deal of trouble in the early settlement of the 
West. 

61 : 1. Alger. Russell Alexander Alger (1836-1907) 
was an American soldier and politician. He was at one 
time Governor of Michigan and in President McKinley's 
cabinet he was Secretary of War. His administration of 
the War Department during the Spanish-American War 
was severely criticized, but an investigating committee 
in the main exonerated him. 

62 : 7. San Antonio. The leading city in western Texas. 

63 : 3. Tampa. Tampa, Florida, situated on Tampa 
Bay, was an embarkation point during the Spanish- 
American War. 

64 : 6. good record. In the first conflict with the 
Spanish at Las Guasimas on June 24, 1898, the Rough 
Riders saw severe fighting and conducted themselves well. 
Before another engagement. Wood was promoted to the 
rank of brigadier-general, and Roosevelt became com- 
mander of the regiment. In the fighting in connection 
with the assault of Santiago, July 1, 1898, Roosevelt dis- 
played great bravery, leading his men in person. Before 
the fighting was over, the death or wounding of the other 



NOTES 331 

commanding officers left him the ranking officer of the 
brigade. The regiment was mider fire all the next day and 
night, but maintained the position on the hills it had won. 
The regiment lay in the trenches before the city until its 
surrender, Roosevelt being in command of the second 
brigade of the cavalry division, from, the middle of July. 

It was during this period that the incident of the famous 
'' round robin '' letter occurred. The officers and men 
who had undergone the hardships of the campaign were 
anxious to return North to recuperate, now that the fight- 
ing was over for the time being. The damp summer sea- 
son with its malaria and yellow fever was approaching. 
They had not complained when there was fighting to be 
done, but they objected to being sacrificed to no good 
purpose. On August 4, all the general officers of General 
Shafter's command united in a letter of protest asking 
that the troops be moved North, and declaring that the 
" army must be moved at once or perish.'' 

Although there was a tendency to criticize the letter, 
which had been composed by Roosevelt, as unmilitary 
and subversive of good discipline, yet it accomplished the 
end sought. General Shafter concurred in its request and 
transmitted it to the War Department with the result 
that in three days the entire command was ordered North. 
Colonel Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were ordered to 
Camp Wyckoff, at Montauk Point, where they arrived 
on August 15 and were shortly afterwards mustered out. 

The Presidency 

65 : 1. President McKinley. William McKinley 
(1843-1901) was the twenty-fifth President of the United 
States. After his first term (1897-1901) he had been re- 



332 NOTES 

elected for a second term. While he was taking part in 
a public reception at the Pan-American Exposition at 
Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, he was shot 
by an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz. 

65 : 24. Loeb. William Loeb, the private secretary of 
President McKinley who served Roosevelt in the same 
capacity during his Presidency. 

66 : 19. to show my competence by my deeds. That 
Roosevelt fulfilled this expectation is shown by the fact 
that after completing the unexpired term of McKinley, 
he was nominated in 1904 to succeed himself. He was 
elected by the largest popular majority ever given for any 
Presidential candidate. 

Space does not permit an account of Roosevelt^s ad- 
ministration. Suffice it to say that the seven and a half 
years which he spent in the White House were crowded 
with achievements of national and international signifi- 
cance. His relation to '^ big business '^ and to labor, his 
policy regarding the conservation of natural resources, his 
upholding of the Monroe doctrine in the Venezuela affair, 
his service as peace-maker between Japan and Russia, his 
interest in developing the efficiency of the navy, his se- 
curing the enactment of laws controlling the matter of 
railway rates, and his steps toward the building of the 
Panama Canal, were some of the outstanding features of 
his administration. 

In the fall of 1913 Roosevelt left the United States for 
his second extended hunting and exploring expedition. 
This time he went to South America and after many 
months in the jungle emerged to tell the world that he 
had discovered a river one thousand miles long, which he 
named the Rio Duvido, or River of Doubt. 



NOTES 333 

In 1914 Roosevelt refused the Progressive nomination 
for Governor of New York, and between that time and 
1916 he became reconciled to the Republican Party. He 
was a candidate for the Presidential nomination m 191b 
but when Charles E. Hughes was nominated he supported 
him vigorously. 

Though denied an active part m the war Roosevelt, 
despite failing health, from time to time made addresses 
urging a tireless prosecution of the war. On the day the 
armistice was signed, he had to go to the hospital on 
account of inflammatory rheumatism. Happily he was 
able to be at home for Christmas and spent a happy 
hohday season with those of his children and grandchildren 
who could be present. 

The last day of his life, January 5th, was spent m read- 
ing and writing at his home. He spent the evening with 
his family and went to bed at eleven o'clock. Shortly 
after four o'clock the next morning, his personal attendant, 
who was sleeping in the next room, noticed that his breath- 
ing was unnatural. He hurriedly called the trained nurse 
who was sleeping nearby, but when they reached Roose- 
velt's beside, they found that a clot of blood, settling upon 
a vital spot, had brought him peaceful death. His burial 
was without pomp and circumstance, his last resting 
place being a beautiful spot on a knoll looking over 
Long Island Sound. There among the woods and hills 
which he had loved since boyhood he was fittingly left 

to lie. ^ -. 

The public life of Roosevelt should not obscure his 
family life in the memory of the American people. As 
has been well said, " His family life was as intense as his 
public hfe. His wife and children and home were next 



334 NOTES 

to his heart, together with his country. He believed that 
the strength of the nation lay in the tenderness and in the 
fine love of American parents and children for one another, 
and in his own life he practiced his belief/^ It seems fitting 
therefore to close these selections from his Autobiography 
with a portion of the chapter in which he drew a most 
engaging picture of his life at Sagamore Hill. As a supple- 
ment to this chapter, Roosevelt's Letters to his Children 
should be read. 

Outdoors and Indoors 

69 : 16. Burroughs. John Burroughs (1836-) is an 
American nature-lover and writer between whom and 
Roosevelt there was a warm friendship. 

71 : 1. Harris. Roosevelt had great admiration for 
Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus books. 
In a letter included in Mrs. Julia Collier Harris's life of 
her father-in-law, Roosevelt has written as follows: '^ When 
I became President, I set my heart on having Joel Chandler 
Harris a guest at the White House. But to get him there 
proved no easy task. He was a very shy, sensitive, re- 
tiring man, who shrank from all publicity, and to whom 
it was really an agony to be made much of in public. But 
I knew that he liked me; and I had the able assistance of 
Julian (Harris's son), who remarked to me: ' I'll get father 
up to see you if I have to blindfold him and back him 
into the White House.' Fortunately such extreme meas- 
ures were not necessar}^; but I shall never forget the smile 
of triumph with which Julian did actually deliver the 
somewhat deprecatory ' father ' inside the White House 
doors. But I think he soon felt at home. He loved the 
children, and at dinner that evening we had no outsider 



NOTES 335 

except Fitzhugh Lee, who was a close family friend, and 
with whom I knew he would get on well. 

'^ In a little while he was completely at ease; . . . and 
after half an hour he was talking and laughing freely, and 
exchanging anecdotes and comparing reminiscences. When 
he left next morning all of our family agreed that we had 
never received at the White House a pleasanter friend or 
a man whom we more delighted to honor. '^ {Joel Chandler 
Harris, pages 514 and 515.) 

71 : 15. the SeQUoias. The Sequoia giganteay found in 
California, is the largest American forest tree. The aver- 
age height of the trees is about 275-300 feet and the trunk 
diameter 30-35 feet near the ground. 

71 : 16. Muir. John Muir (1838-1914) was an Amer- 
ican naturalist and writer. He did much exploring not 
only in the far West and in Alaska, but also in other re- 
mote and unfamiliar parts of the world. He found time 
to write entertainingly articles and books about his ex- 
periences and his observations in the field of natural 
history. 

71 : 19. Emorson. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) 
was a famous American poet and essayist. In 1871, he 
made a lecture tour as far west as California. 

74 : 18. Poe. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was the 
famous American poet and prose-writer. 

75 : 21. Gaston PhODbus. Gaston III (1331-1391; 
was one of the counts of Foix, an old and distinguished 
French family which flourished from the eleventh to the 
fifteenth century. Gaston III was surnamed Phcebus 
(Apollo) on account of his beauty. He was very fond of 
hunting and wrote a book entitled Pleasures of Huntin-g 
Wild Beasts and Birds of Prey, 



336 NOTES 

75 : 22. Emperor Maximilian. Maximilian I (1459- 
1519) was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 
1493-1519. He was the author of books on the art of war, 
hunting, gardening, etc. 

76 : 10. Gibbon. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), the 
English historian whose The History of the Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire is one of the greatest histories 
ever written. 

76 : 10. Macaulay. Thomas Babington Macaulay 
(1800-1859), an English historian and essayist, whose chief 
historical work is History of England covering the reigns 
of James II and William HI. 

76 : 10. Herodotus. A celebrated Greek historian 
(?484-?424 B. C), sometimes called '' the Father of His- 
tory ^' who wrote a history of the Persian invasion of 
Greece. 

76 : 11. Thucydides. A noted Greek historian (?471- 
?401 B. C.) who began an elaborate History of tJie Pelopon- 
nesian TFar, which, however, he did not live to finish. 

76 : 11. Tacitus. A celebrated Roman historian {Ib^ 
?after 117) v^'hose Germania gives an account of the Ger- 
man tribes. 

76 : 11. Heimskringla. An important prose history 
of the Norse Kings from the earliest times to the battle 
of Re in 1177. The author was an Icelander, Snorri 
Sturlusow (1178-1241). 

76 : 11. Froissart. Jean Froissart (1337-?1410) was 
a celebrated French historian whose great work is Chron- 
icles of France, England, Italy, and Spain relating the his- 
torical events from 1332 till 1400. 

76 : 12. Joinvilie. Jean de Joinville (?1224-1317) was 
a French chronicler, author of History of St. Louis, 



NOTES 337 

76 : 12. Villehardouin. Geoffroi de Villehardouin 
(?1150-?1212) was a French historian who has left a val- 
uable account of the Fourth Crusade (1198-1207) in which 
he was an active participant. 

76 : 12. Parkman. Francis Parkman (1823-1893) was 
an American historian whose works include Conspiracy of 
PontiaCj Pioneers of France in the New Worlds Jesuits in 
North America, Discovery of the Great West, The Old Re- 
gime in Canada, Montcalm and Wolfe, and The Cali- 
fornia and Oregon Trail, to mention only the more im- 
portant. 

76 : 12. Mahan. See above 58 : 2. 

76 : 13. Mommsen. Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903), 
a celebrated German historian, whose principal work is 
Roman History. 

76 : 13. Ranke. Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886), a 
German historian, author of several noted historical works, 
dealing with different phases of European history, espe- 
cially with German}^ 

76 : 16. Darwin. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), 
a celebrated English scientist, whose chief work. Origin 
of Species (1859), propounded the theory of biological 
evolution. 

76 : 16. Huxley. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) 
was one of the great English scientists. He became the 
champion of Darwin^s evolutionary theories and defended 
them stoutly in his writings and speeches. He had a re- 
markable gift for popularizing in his writings scientific 
facts and theories. 

76 : 17. Carlyle. Thomas Carlyle (1795^1881) was a 
noted English essayist and historian of Scotch descent. 
Among his best known books are Sartor Resartus, The 



338 NOTES 

French Revolution, Heroes and Hero-Worshipy Past and 
Present J and History of Frederick the Great. 

76 : 17. Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) 
was the great American essayist, whose various writings 
have stimulated many in an ethical way. 

76 : 17. Kant. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a 
noted German philosopher. 

76 : 18. Sutherland's. Alexander Sutherland (1852- 
1902) was an Australian journalist. Roosevelt refers 
here to his Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct 
(1898). 

76 : 19. Acton. Lord Acton (1834-1902) was a noted 
English historian who in the latter part of his life was 
Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford Uni- 
versity. 

76 : 19. Lounsbury. Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury 
(1838-) was for a long time professor of English at Yale 
University. Among his writings were Studies in Chaucer 
and several volumes of Shakespearean studies. 

77 : 10. One Hundred Best Books. Sir John Lub- 
bock, an English scientist of the nineteenth century, drew 
up a list of the '^ hundred best books '^ in the world's lit- 
erature which attracted much attention. 

77 : 10. Five-Foot Library. Several j^ears ago President 
Eliot of Harvard made the statement that all the books 
really necessary to culture could be gathered together on a 
shelf five feet long. Later, he made this statement ex- 
plicit by drawing up a list of the books to be included in 
this library. 

77:21. Milton. John Milton (1608-1674), a celebrated 
English poet, author of Paradise Lost, regarded as the 
most sublime poem in English literature. 



NOTES 339 

77 • 22. Pope. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), a famous 
English poet, noted for his success in brilliant, epigram- 
matic satiric verse. 

77 : 22. Whitman. Walt Whitman (1819-1892), an 
American poet, whose formless but vigorous poetry as 
represented in Leaves of Grass was a forerunner of the 

modern free verse. 

77 : 23. Browning. Robert Browning (1812-1889), an 
English poet, whose poetry is difficult to read but very 

77 : 23. Lowell. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), 
an American poet. 

77 : 24. Tennyson. Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), a 
celebrated English poet. ,,^,, ^ 

77 :24. Kipling. Rudyard Kiplmg (1865-), an Eng- 
lish poet popular for vivid, vigorous verse. 

77 : 24. Korner. Karl Theodor Korner (1791-1813), a 
German lyric poet whose short hfe closed on the battle- 
field. Many of his poems were written while in army 
service, the appropriate title of his volume of verse, pub- 
lished after his death, being Lz/re and Sword. 

11 : 24. Heine. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), a Ger- 
man lyric poet of Hebrew descent. 

77 : 25. Bard of the Dimbovitza. The title of an 
interesting collection of Roumanian folk-songs collected 
from the peasants in the valley of the Dimbovitza by 
Helena Vacaresco and published in an English translation 

77 : 25. Tolstoy's. Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), a 
Russian novelist and social reformer, whose chief novels 
are War and Peace and Anna Karenina. 

11 : 26. Sienkiewicz. Henryk Sienkiewicz (1845-) 



340 NOTES 

was a Polish novelist. Quo Vadisfy a picture of Roman 
life in the time of Nero, being his best known book. 

77 : 27. ** Salammbo/' A novel by the French nov- 
elist Flaubert based upon the history of HannibaFs sister 
Salammbo. 

77 : 27. " Tom Brown/' The two famous books by 
Thomas Hughes, Toin Brown^s School-days and Tom Brown 
at Oxford^ illustrating respectively public school and col- 
legiate life in England. 

77 : 28. '* Two Admirals." A novel of sea adventure 
by James Fenimore Cooper. 

77 : 28. '* Quentin Durward.'' A historical romance 
by Sir Walter Scott. 

77 : 29. *' Artemus Ward." The pseudonym of C. F. 
Browne (1834-1867), an American humorist. 

77 : 29. " Ingoldsby Legends." A series of satirical 
stories in prose and verse written about the middle of the 
nineteenth century by Barham, whose pen-name was 
Thomas Ingoldsby, Esq. 

77 : 30. '* Pickwick." The Posthumous Papers of the 
Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens. 

77:30. ''Vanity Fair." The most representative 
novel of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863). 

78 : 17. Macbeth. One of Shakespeare^s tragedies 
dealing with deep passions that lead to violence and crime. 

78 : 17. Hamlet. Another of Shakespeare's tragedies 
which is more thoughtful and poetic than Macbeth. 

82 : 20. Farragut. David Glasgow Farragut (1801- 
1870), a celebrated American admiral, who directed many 
brilliant naval campaigns during the Civil War. August 5, 
1864, with eighteen ships, four of them monitors, Farragut 
ran past the batteries guarding entrance to Mobile bay, 



NOTES 341 

and engaged the Confederate fleet within the bay. His 
defeat of the Confederate ironclad, Tennessee, was the 
notable achievement of this expedition. 

85 : 15. Jonathan Edwards. The bear derived his 
name from an eminent American theologian of the eight- 
eenth century whose doctrines represented the extreme 
views of the New England Puritans on points of Calvin- 
istic theology. 

88 : 15. '* Kim.*' The hero of a story by Kipling tell- 
ing the adventures of an Irish waif in India who acquired 
marvelous knowledge of the Orient. 

HISTORY 
The Backwoodsmen of the Alleghanies 

It was with historical writing that Roosevelt began his 
literary career, his first volume being The History of the 
Naval War of 1812, Although this was the work of a 
young man just twenty-three years old it was an exceed- 
ingly meritorious performance in that it corrected many 
mistakes of earlier historians and showed an impartiality 
of judgment. 

His longest and most painstaking historical work is The 
Winning of the West, the four volumes of which were 
written from 1889 to 1896. So excellent is this account 
of our territorial expansion from 1769-1807 and of the 
men to whom it was due that many regard it as Roose- 
velt^s most enduring contribution to literature. When 
one considers the difficulty of finding and collecting ma- 
terial in this field thirty years ago, he cannot fail to feel 
that Roosevelt^s achievement was a remarkable one. One 
of the most striking chapters in this book is the one here 



342 NOTES 

reprinted which gives vivid picture of the life and charac- 
ter of the men who played so large a part in the develop- 
ment of American civilization. 

93 : 22. Fort Pitt. Located at what is now Pittsburg. 

93 : 23. Cherokees. An Indian tribe which occupied 
the mountainous section of North Carolina and Georgia. 

94 : 8. Quakers. Members of the religious denomina- 
tion known as the Society of Friends which took its rise 
in England about the middle of the seventeenth century. 

94 : 23. Scotch-Irish. This term does not indicate, 
as many people suppose, mixed Scotch and Irish descent. 
It denotes the descendants of the early Scotch Presbyterian 
who settled, for a hundred years or more after 1600, with 
their wives and families in Ulster, in the north of Ireland. 
For a hundred years after 1700 their descendants seeking 
to escape civil and religious burdens that were intolerable, 
sought a more promising home in America. They became 
an important ingredient in the American population. 

94 : 24. Roundhead. A member of the Puritan party 
during the English Civil War in the seventeenth century. 
This nickname was applied to the Puritans because of 
their custom of w^earing their hair cut short in contrast 
to the general custom of the time, 

94 : 24. Cavalier. The adherents of Charles I of Eng- 
land during the Civil War in the seventeenth century. 

94:27. Huguenot. The French Calvinists were known 
as Huguenots. During the 16th and 17th centuries they 
were subjected to much persecution on account of their 
Protestant faith. To escape these persecutions thousands 
of the Huguenots left France and settled in other coun- 
tries, many going to America. 

94 : 30. Knox. John I^ox (1505-1572) was a Scotch 



NOTES 343 

divine who was a leader in the establishment of Presbyte- 
rianism in Scotland. 

94:30. Calvin. John Calvin (1509-1564) was the 
noted Protestant reformer and founder of Presbyterian- 
ism. 

94 : 31. Covenanters. Those in Scotland who in the 
seventeenth century bound themselves by a solemn cov- 
enant to uphold and maintain the Presbyterian doctrine 
and scheme of church government against Catholicism 
and Anglicanism. 

95 : 13. Milesian Irish. Descendants of the original 
Gaelic colonists of Ireland who were called Milesians be- 
cause according to the legend they sprang from the three 
sons of Mil, or Milesius, who came from Spain or Gaul and 
conquered the preceding inhabitants some centuries be- 
fore the Christian era. 

96 : 20. Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was 
the Puritan leader who became ruler of England from 1653- 
1658 with the title of Lord Protector. 

95 : 21. Derry. The city of Derry (now known morb 
commonly as Londonderry) was successfully defended by 
the Irish Protestants when James II of England attacked 
it during his expedition into Ireland, 1689. 

95 : 22. Boyne. A river in Ireland on whose banks in 
1690 the army of James II was heavily defeated. 

95 : 22. Aughrim. An Irish village where in 1691 the 
English defeated an army of the Irish and French. 

96 : 11. independence. The reference is to the Meck- 
lenburg Declaration drawn up by the citizens of Mecklen- 
burg County, North Carolina, in 1775. It is believed by 
some to have antedated the Philadelphia Declaration but 
this view is not generally held by historians. 



344 NOTES 

106 : 17. pankraition. Among the Olympic games of 
the Greeks this was a contest involving a combination of 
boxing and wrestling. The combatants fought naked, 
their bodies being oiled and sprinkled with sand for the 
sake of a better hold. . It seems to have been very much 
of the nature of a rough-and-tumble fight although there 
were rules governing the contest. 

106 : 24. Kenton. Simon Kenton (1755-1836) was an 
American pioneer whose fame as a frontier hero was second 
only to that of Daniel Boone. 

106 : 32. pillion. A pad or cushion placed behind a 
saddle as a seat for a second person, usually a woman. 

107 : 18. noggins. Wooden mugs. 

The Historian of the Future 

This selection is from Roosevelt^s address as president 
of the American Historical Association, delivered at the 
Boston meeting, December 27, 1912. The title, ''History 
as Literature," indicated that Roosevelt was discussing 
the topic whether history should be treated in a cold and 
dispassionate scientific manner or whether it should be 
presented as a vivid story with emphasis on man as the 
principal factor. His position is sufiiciently indicated in 
the portion of the address which is here given. The last 
two or three paragraphs of the selection have been much 
admired as one of the most striking and eloquent passages 
in all Roosevelt's writings. 

121 : 8. Ten Thousand. In the campaign of Cyxus 
the Younger against the Persians, the Greek army of 10,000 
was forced to retreat after the death of C>tus in the battle 
of Cunaxa. ^^ At last one day — in the fifth month — Feb- 
ruary 400 B. C. — Xenophon, who was with the rearguard. 



NOTES 345 

heard a great shouting among the men who had reached 
the top of a hill in front. He thought they saw an enemy. 
He mounted his horse, and galloped forward with some 
cavalry. As thej^ came nearer, they could make out the 
shout: it was ^^ The sea! the sea! There, far off was the 
silver gleam of the Euxine. After the long, intense strain 
of toil and danger, the men burst into tears: like true 
Greek children of the sea they knew now that they were 
in sight of home.^' (Jebb^s Greek Literature, p. 110.) 

121 : 10. Jehu. See Bible, II Kings IX. In his usur- 
pation of the throne of Israel, Jehu killed Jezebel, the 
queen-mother. 

121 : 11. Ahab. See Bible, / Kings XXII, 2^40. 
Ahab was a King of Israel who was killed in battle with 
Jehoshaphet, King of Judah. 

121 : 12. Josiah. See Bible, II Kings XXII-XXIII 
and II Chronicles XXXIV, XXXV. When Pharaoh- 
Necho went from Egypt to carry on his war with Assyria, 
Josiah, King of Judah, opposed his march. In the sub- 
sequent battle Josiah was killed. 

121 : 19. Shalmaneser. Shalmaneser and Sargon 
were Assyrian rulers, Amenhotep and Rameses, Egyptian. 

121 : 23. Peloponnesian War. A war extending from 
431 to 404 B. C. between the Athenians and their aUies 
and the Peloponnesian Confederacy embracing the Spartans 
and their allies. The result was a victory for Athens. 

122 : 3. Richard III. In the play Richard III, Shake- 
speare has represented this king as more cruel and blood- 
thirsty than modem historians beheve him to have been. 
This was due to Shakespeare's use of a biassed history 
popular in his day. But so vivid is his portrayal of Richard 
that most persons hold their ideas of him from the play. 



346 NOTES 

122 : 4. Keats. In Keats^ poem On First Looking into 
Chapman's Homer ^ he made the mistake of referring to 
Cortez as the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean when he 
should have said Balboa. 

122 : 11. Napier. Sir William F. P. Napier (1785- 
1860) was a British general who saw service in the Penin- 
sular campaigns. Afterwards he wrote a full account of 
the campaign, in six volumes, entitled History of the 
Peninsular War, which described vividly the deeds of 
the English in such engagements as Roosevelt men- 
tions. 

122 : 13. Parkman. See note 76 : 12. 

122 : 14. Montcalm. Marquis de Montcalm (1712- 
1759) was the general commanding the French forces in the 
struggle around Quebec in 1759. An account of his death 
together with that of Wolfe may be found in Parkman 's 
France and England in North America, Part VII. 

122 : 14. Wolfe. James Wolfe (1727-1759) was an Eng- 
lish general commanding the English forces in the attack 
on Quebec in 1759. As he led the decisive charge, he was 
kiUed. 

122 : 15. Fitzgerald. Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883) 
was an English poet whose fame is due almost wholly to 
his translation, from the Persian, of the Ruhdiydt of Omar 
Khayyam. His rendering of this old poem seems final so 
far as English literature is concerned. 

122 : 20. Gibbon. See note 76 : 10. 

123 : 3. Maspero. Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero 
(1846-) is a distinguished French authority on Egyptian 
history. 

123 : 4. Breasted. James Henry Breasted (1865-) is 
an American authority on Oriental history. He has writ- 



NOTES 347 

ten several books, his Ancient Records of Egypt being one 
of his most notable. 

123 : 4. Weigall. Arthur Edward P. B. Weigall (1880-) 
is an English authority on Egyptian history. 

123 : 7. Heimskringla. See note 76 : 10. 

123 : 7. Sagas. The sagas are prose accounts of the 
deeds of ancient Icelandic heroes. The accounts are al- 
ways vivid and forceful, the events happening mostly be- 
tween 874 and 1030. 

123 : 11. Mount Vernon. The burial place of George 
Washington some fifteen miles down the Potomac river 
from Washington. 

125 : 18. Ivan the Terrible. Ivan IV, Czar of Russia 
from 1547-1584. His conquests were accompanied by so 
many cruelties that he was sumamed The Terrible. 

126 : 31. Jenghiz Khan. A Mongolian king who 
conquered northern China and central Asia 1215-1221. 

126 : 4. Touaregs. A powerful tribe inhabiting that 
portion of the Sahara lying south of Algeria and between 
Morocco and Senegal. They control the principal caravan 
routes. 

126 : 7. Moslem. The followers of Mohammedism. 

126 : 7. Buddhist. A follower of the religious system 
founded by Buddha in India in the sixth century. 

127 : 20. Agincourt. In the battle of Agincourt, 
October 25, 1415, between the French and the English 
the skill of the English with the long bow was a decisive 
factor in the victory. 

127 : 21. Alexander. Alexander the Great (356-323 
B. C), King of Macedon, pushed his conquests eastward 
as far as an invasion of India. 

127 ; 23. Low-Dutch sea-thieves. The Anglo-Saxon 



348 NOTES 

conquerors of England were from Teutonic tribes living 
around the mouth of the river Elbe. 

127 : 25. Unknown continents. The reference is to 
the peopling of North America and Australia by the de- 
scendants of the early Anglo-Saxons. 

127 : 25. Hannibal. The Carthaginian general, Han- 
nibal, carried his conquests up through Spain to the gates 
of Rome itself. He was defeated by Scipio Africanus in 
202. 

128 : 9. Memphis. The early capital of Egypt, sit- 
uated on the Nile, south of Cairo. It continued to exist 
down to Roman times, but was gradually abandoned and 
ruined after the Mohanamedan conquest. 

128 : 10. Babylon. The capital of ancient Babylonia, 
situated on the Euphrates, and one of the oldest cities of 
the East. The famous Hanging Gardens, one of the seven 
wonders of the world, seem to have been a building on the 
roof of which were planted trees, flowers, and shrubs, and 
are said to have been constructed by Nebuchadnezzar for 
the gratification of his queen because the level scenery 
around Babylon was dreary to her in comparison with 
that of her mountain home in Media. 

128 : 11. Nineveh. The capital of the ancient Assyrian 
Empire. It was situated on the upper Tigris. 

128 : 12. Queen Maeve. A famous warrior-queen in 
the early Irish sagas. 

128 : 14. Olaf . One of the most famous of the Nor- 
wegian Kings (995-1030). 

128 : 20. Samurai. The miUtary class in Japan during 
the prevalence of the feudal system in that country. 

128 : 24. Timur the Lame (1333-1405). The Tartar 
conqueror who became ruler of a great empire embracing 



NOTES 349 

the larger part of Asia. His name is more usually given 
as Tamburlane. 

128 : 25. Gustavus. Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), 
King of Sweden. 

128 : 26. Frederick. Frederick the Great (1712-1786), 
King of Prussia. 

128 : 26. Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769- 
1821), Emperor of the French, 1804-1814. 

129 : 15. Wilderness. This westward expansion of 
the United States has been vividly portrayed by Roose- 
velt in The Winning of the West. 

ADVENTURE 
Bear Hunting Experiences 

Roosevelt's ranch life in the 80^s resulted in several 
books descriptive of his experiences in the Far West, es- 
pecially on his hunting trips. Among his books in this 
class is Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1886) from which 
the selection here given is taken. Other books of the same 
general character are The Wilderness Huiiter (1887), Ranch 
Life and Hunting Trail (1888) and American Big Game 
Hunting (1893). 

136 : 4. grisly. Although both the spelling grizzly and 
grisly are sanctioned, yet the first is the older. It orig- 
inated from the color of the animal which is usually a griz- 
zled gray but is very variable, being sometimes whitish, 
blackish, or brownish. The word grizzled was especially 
in Ehzabethan days used to denote a grayish color, for 
example, a grizzled beard (Cf. Hamlet i, 2, 240), and this 
adjective was applied to this species of bear. The second 
form of spelling originated in the way suggested by Roose- 



350 NOTES 

velt; that is, it came through association with the ad- 
jective grisly which was connected with the ferocious dis- 
position of the animal. 

Gettestg Christmas Dinner on a Ranch 

Accompanying the selection from Roosevelt^s hunting 
books may be placed this little sketch which was reprinted 
in Everybody's Magazine with a note to the effect that it 
was written twenty years before and published in a paper 
of small circulation, which was now defunct. Because it 
is a vividly written bit of writing in Roosevelt^s best style^ 
it seems worthy of being more widely known. 

CITIZENSHIP 
True Americanism 

During the earlier part of his political life, Roosevelt 
wrote several magazine articles and addresses embodying 
his ideals of citizenship. These he collected in 1897 into 
a volume with the title American Ideals and Other Essays^ 
Social and Political. In a subsequent edition he added 
several of his later discussions of such topics, thus making 
this volume, together with Addresses and Presidential Ad- 
dresses, 1902-1 904 y important sources from which may be 
gathered his ideas on politics and government. As yet his 
later addresses in this field have not been collected and 
added to the authorized edition of his works. 

The essay chosen from American Ideals for inclusion 
here presents his views upon a topic which has become 
identified closely with his name because it was the corner- 
stone of his theory of citizenship. 

149 : 3. Johnson. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) 



NOTES 351 

was the noted English essayist and poet. Boswell in his 
Life of Johnsorij records this remark about patriotism as 
follows: ^' Patriotism having become one of our topics, 
Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, 
an apothegm, at which many will start: ' Patriotism is 
the last refuge of a scoundrel/ But let it be considered, 
that he did not mean a real and generous love of our 
country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, 
in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self- 
interest." 

160 : 26. Manchester. A manufacturing city in Eng- 
land. 

152 : 20. Ancient republics of Greece. Ancient 
Greece was largely a country of individual states each fired 
with a desire for independence and freedom. The two 
most prominent were Athens and Sparta. Both of these 
developed a government by the people, or democracy. 

152 : 20. mediaeval republics of Italy. During the 
Middle Ages, Italy was largely a country of city republics 
such as Venice, Florence, and Genoa. 

152 : 21. petty states of Germany. Until the Con- 
gress of Vienna in 1815, what is now the German Empire 
had consisted of thirty-nine independent states. 

153 : 16. Harris. See note 6 : 24. 

153 : 17. Mark Twain. Samuel Langhorne Clemens 
(1835-1910), the noted American humorist. 

162 : 24. Jay. John Jay (1745-1829) was a distin- 
guished American lawyer and statesman. 

162 : 24. Sevier. John Sevier (1745-1815) was a fa- 
mous pioneer who participated in the battle of King's 
Mountain (1779) as the leader of a band of mountain men 
and who afterwards became Governor of Tennessee. 



352 NOTES 

162 : 24. Marion. Francis Marion (1732-1795) was 
a noted American leader in the Revolutionary War. He 
was known as the Swamp Fox because he made the swamps 
of South Carolina the rendezvous from which he harassed 
the British. 

162 : 24. Laurens. Henry Laurens (1724-1792) was 
a South Carolinian prominent in Revolutionary days. 

162 : 32. Schuyler. Philip Schuyler (1733-1804) was 
in command of the expedition into Canada in 1775 and 
of the forces sent against Burgogne in 1777. After the 
close of the Revolutionary War, he was for two terms 
senator from New York. 

163 : 1. Van Buren. Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) 
was the eighth President of the United States (1837-1841). 

163 : 12. Miihlenburgs. H. M. Miihlenburg (1711- 
1787) was a German- American clergymen who founded 
the Lutheran Church in the United States. His sons, 
J. P. G. Miihlenburg, F. A. Miihlenburg, and G. H. E. 
Miihlenburg, all distinguished themselves as citizens. 

163 : 16. Carroll. Charles Carroll (1737-1832) one of 
the signers of the Declaration of Independence for Mary- 
land. 

163 : 16. Sullivan. John Sullivan (1740-1795) was an 
American general in Revolutionary times. 

163 : 17. Sheridan. Philip Henry Sheridan (1831- 
1888) was a prominent general on the Union side in the 
Civil War. 

163 : 17. Shields. General James Shields (1810-1879) 
served both in the Mexican War and the Civil War. 

164 : 22. Samoan trouble. Owing to disturbances in 
Samoa in 1889, the joint protectorate which England, Ger- 
many, and the United States had been exercising for 



NOTES 353 

several years was terroinated and the islands partitioned 
among these three powers. In this connection there was 
friction between the United States and Germany. 

The Strenuous Life 

Another early collection of essays similar to American 
Ideals was the volume entitled The Strenuous Life (1900). 
The latter volume took its title from the first essay which 
had been originally a speech delivered by Roosevelt when 
he was before the Hamilton Club of Chicago, April 10, 
1899. In reprinting the essay in this book, portions of it 
that dealt particularly with some of the domestic and for- 
eign problems arising out of the Spanish-American War 
which had just closed are omitted, but enough is given to 
show the essential spirit of the address. 

Our Responsibilities as a Nation 

When Roosevelt became President in his own right on 
March 4, 1905, he delivered this brief inaugural address. 
Short though it is, the reader may find in it the touchstone 
by which to interpret the foreign and domestic policies of 
his administration. 

The Man with the Muck-Rake 

The occasion of this address was the laying of the corner- 
stone of the Office Building of the House of Representa- 
tives, April 14, 1906. Just at that time, criticism was rife 
in the press, especially on the part of some of the popular 
magazines, regarding public evils and the actions of those 
in authority. Roosevelt took this occasion to indicate 
that there was a difference between legitimate criticism 
and the exaggeration in which many journals were indulg- 



354 NOTES 

ing. After discussing this topic he passed to the matter 
of the accountability to the community of those who had 
accumulated large property. 

177 : 2. Capitol. The capitol at Washington was be- 
gun in 1793 and substantially completed in 1811. 

177 : 20. Bunyan's. John Bunyan (1628-1688) was 
a celebrated English preacher who wrote the prose allegory 
The Pilgrim's Progress 1678 (second part 1684). The suc- 
cess of the allegory has come not merely from its exposi- 
tion of the Protestant theory of the plan of salvation as 
from the vivid representation of persons and places and 
the effective narrative. 

177 : 21. Man with the Muck-rake^ This character 
appears in the Second Part of Pilgrim's Progress. The 
Interpreter conducts Christian into a room " where was a 
man that could look no way but downwards, with a muck- 
rake in his hand. There stood also one over his head with 
a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered him that crown 
for his muck-rake: but the man did neither look up, nor 
regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, 
and dust of the floor.'' 

179 : 14. Aristides. A celebrated Athenian statesman 
and general who lived in the fourth century B. C. 

179 : 31. Panama Canal. The building of a ship canal 
across the Isthmus of Panama is one of the greatest tan- 
gible results of Roosevelt's Presidency. For over four hun- 
dred years there had been discussion of the project and a 
few attempts at accomplishing it. Roosevelt's interest in 
the scheme led to the United States beginning the work of 
constructing the canal in 1904. It was completed in 1914, 
the cost being approximately $375,000,000. 

181 : 19. Crackling of thorns, etc. See Bible, Eccle- 



NOTES 355 

siastes VII, 6. The image is from the Eastern use of thorns 
for fuel. A fire of such material burns up quickly. In 
this passage in the Bible it is used as a comparison to show 
how futile was mirth which was merely frivolous. 

182 .11. " Ecclesiastical Polity/' This book was 
written by the English theologian, Richard Hooker (1553- 
1600). 

The Development of the American Nation 

This speech delivered at the opening of the Jamestown 
Exposition is representative of Roosevelt ^s occasional 
speeches made for various political and social occasions. 
It contains a significant review of the factors in the de- 
velopment of the American nation. In this respect it 
illustrates the truth of the statement made about Roose- 
velt that, ^^ With him, love of country was based upon 
complete knowledge. He knew his country^s history as 
few men know it.^' 

189 : 3. celebrating. In 1907, the Jamestown Exposi- 
tion was held on Hampton Roads, Virginia, in commemo- 
ration of the three hundredth anniversary of the first per- 
manent English settlement in America. 

189 : 5. first settled. The first permanent settlement 
of the English was in 1607 at Jamestown, on the banlcs 
of the James river in Virginia, about thirty-two miles 
from its mouth. On the site of the settlement, are at 
present ruins of the fort, a church, and two or three 
houses. 

189 : 17. the Cavalier and the Puritan. See note 
94 :24. 

196 : 5. Martin Ghuzzlewit. In this novel by Charles 
Dickens, the portions descriptive of the hero's experiences 



356 NOTES 

in America are Chapters XV-XVII, XXI-XXIII, 
XXXIII and XXXIV. The description of Eden may be 
found in Chapters XXI, XXIII, and XXXIII. 

196 : 11. Andrew Jackson (1767-1845). The seventh 
President of the United States (1829-1837). 

196 : 27. Jefferson. See note 58 : 15. 

196 : 28. Marshall. John Marshall (1755-1835) was 
a celebrated American jurist, who was chief justice of the 
United States Supreme Court (1801-1835). 

197 : 19. Grant. See note 2 : 28. 

197 : 20. Lee. Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) was com- 
mander-in-chief of the Confederate Army in the Civil War. 

199 : 15. Sketch. The reference is to the life of Ed- 
mund Burke, the English statesman of the eighteenth 
century, which John Morley, the English statesman and 
author, wrote in 1879 for the English Men of Letters 
Series. 

Conservation of Natural Resources 

Roosevelt^s name will always be associated with the 
movement for the conservation of natural resources. All 
during his Presidential career, this attempt to foster fore- 
sight and restraint in man^s use of the primary sources of 
wealth, — the earth^s surface, the forests and waters upon 
it, and the minerals beneath it, — and to secure their equal 
enjoyment by the people of this and of future generations 
received his constant and enthusiastic attention. In 1908, 
he called a conference of all the state governors and other 
delegates to consider the conservation of natural resources 
in all its aspects. To this conference, which met at the 
White House, May, 1908. Roosevelt delivered the address 
which is here given. 



NOTES 357 

210 : 27. Pinchot. Gifford Pinchot (1865-) is an 
American forestry expert who served as Chief of the 
Forestry Bureau during Roosevelt's administration. 

The Duties of the Citizen 

On his way back to the United States after his African 
expedition, Roosevelt visited several of the European 
capitals and delivered at each some notable address. 
One of the most interesting of these addresses was the 
one here reprinted which was delivered in Paris before a 
large and representative body of French scholars and 
other notables. 

215 : 12. famous university. The Sorbonne was 
founded about 1250. 

217 : 21. Gamaliel. A famous Jewish rabbi who was 
the teacher of the Apostle Paul. " To sit at the feet of 
Gamaliel ^' has become a common expression for being a 
disciple or learner. 

221 : 8. Hotspur. Henry Percy, an English nobleman, 
who was killed in the battle of Shrewsbury, 1403. His 
impetuous nature and his fiery temper won for him the 
nickname Hotspur. Shakespeare gives an engaging pic- 
ture of him in Henry IV, Part I. 

221 : 26. French epic. The Chanson de Roland, 

242 : 20. Malbrook. A popular French song beginning 
" Malbrook has gone to war.^^ The authorship is un- 
known but the song is supposed to have originated about 
1780. 

Last Words on Americanism 

It is significant that - Roosevelt^s last message to the 
American people was upon the theme of Americanism. 



358 NOTES 

He had been invited to speak at a meeting under the 
auspices of the American Defence Society on the evening 
of January 5th, 1919. Not being able to attend on ac- 
count of his health, he wrote and sent the letter here 
given which was read at the meeting. 

NATURAL HISTORY 

My Life as a Naturalist 

247 : 19. Audubon. See note 9 : 4. 

247 : 20. Waterton. Charles Waterton (1782-1865) 
was an English naturalist who spent many years in wan- 
dering about in South America having no other object 
than the pursuit of natural history. His adventures in 
South America are graphically described in his Wander- 
ings in South America J the Northwest of the United States j 
and the Antilles in 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824. 

247 : 22. Brehm. Christian Ludwig Brehm (1787- 
1864) was a German ornithologist. 

247 : 24. Darwin. See note 76 : 16. 

247 : 25. Huxley. See note 76 : 16. 

247 : 25. Marsh. Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) 
was an American zoologist and paleontologist who ac- 
complished a great amount of valuable scientific work in 
the discovery of fossil vertebrates in the geological forma- 
tions of the Western states. 

247 : 26. Leidy's. Joseph Leidy (1823-1891) was an 
American naturalist who made many important contribu- 
tions to paleontology and other branches of natural science. 

248 : 2. Osborn. Henry Fairfield Osborn is a noted 
American paleontologist. 

251 : 20. Merriam. See note 12 : 23. 



NOTES 359 

261 : 20. Burroughs. See note 69 : 16. 

261 : 22. Cherrie. One of the scientists sent by the 
American Museum of Natural History with Roosevelt 
on the South American trip. 

261 : 23. Miller. Another scientist sent by the Amer- 
ican Museum of Natural History with Roosevelt's South 
American trip. 

251 : 23. Heller. One of Roosevelt's companions on 
the African trip. 

261 : 23. Mearns. Another of Roosevelt's companions 
on the African trip. 

253 : 5. Milwaukee. During the violent campaign of 
1912, Roosevelt, while speaking in Milwaukee, was shot 
by a fanatic just three weeks before the election, but he 
was not seriously injured. 

253 : 14. Agassiz. Alexander Agassiz (1835-1910) was 
the son of Louis Agassiz and himself a naturalist of dis- 
tinction, his special interest being marine zoology. 

256 : 29. Selous. Frederick C. Selous (1851-) is an 
English hunter and explorer who has spent much time in 
South Africa. He has written several books upon his 
experiences and his observations. 

267 : 7. Wallace. Alfred Russel Wallace (1822-1913) 
was an Enghsh scientist. Simultaneously with Darwin he 
announced the theory of natural selection which he had 
arrived at independently. 

Nature Fakirs 

One of the surest indications that Roosevelt possessed 
the spirit of a true naturalist was his impatience with the 
faulty observations and false deductions of others. Again 
and again in his writings he insists upon care and accuracy 



360 NOTES 

in observation as well as in the interpretation of observa- 
tions, even though there may thereby be lost some of the 
sensational features which a too vivid imagination or a 
looseness regarding veracity may so easily impart to ac- 
counts of natural phenomena. As a designation for these 
unscrupulous'persons, he coined the term ^' nature fakirs '' 
and voiced his indignation toward them in the magazine 
article which is here reprinted. 

268 : 6. unicorn. A fabulous animal with one horn. 

258 : 6. basilisk. A fabulous serpent whose breath, 
and even its look, was fatal. 

258 : 18. Hearne. Samuel Hearne (1745-1792) was 
an English explorer who between 1769 and 1772 visited 
many parts of British North America. 

260 : 10. Miller. Olive Thorne Miller (1831-), author 
of several bird books. 

260 : 11. J. A. Allen, etc. These are all American 
naturalists who have written interestingly and accurately 
about outdoor iue and wild creatures. 

261 : 5. roc. A mythical Arabian bird of such im- 
mense size that it bore off elephants to feed its young. 

261 : 5. cockatrice. A fabulous monster believed to 
have been hatched by a serpent from a cock^s egg, and 
supposed to possess characteristics of both these animals. 
Like the basilisk, its breath was believed to be fatal. 

261 :32. *' King Solomon's Mines.*' A highly col- 
ored romance of adventure in the wilds of Africa in quest 
of Ejng Solomon's Ophir — the country mentioned in 
Biblical passages such as I Kings IX, 26 and X, 11, 
whence Solomon received treasures. The exact location 
of this country is unknown, scholars differing in the 
conjectures. 



NOTES aei 

262 : 1. Haggard. Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-) 
is an English novelist. 

262 : 14. " Uncle Remus." See note 6 : 25. 

262 : 15. " Reynard the Fox." A poem, widely popu- 
lar in the Middle Ages, in which the characters are ani- 
mals, the hero being the fox Reynard. 

262 : 18. Marcus Aurelius. A celebrated Roman Em- 
peror living between 121 and 180 A. D. who was greatly 
devoted to philosophy. His work, ^' The Meditations of 
Marcus Aurelius,^' exhibits his acute, reflective mind. 

262 : 22. White Queen. One of the characters in 
Lewis CarrolFs Through the Looking Glass. 

266 : 4. Barnum's. Phinias Taylor Barnum (1810- 
1891) was a famous American showman. 

266 : 10. Cardiff Giant. In 1868 a rude statue of a 
man was found buried near Cardiff, New York. It was 
given out that this was a petrified prehistoric giant. It 
turned out that the whole matter was a hoax. 

The Deer of North America 

As shown in the Autobiography ^ Roosevelt^s ambition 
in early life was to become a naturalist of the type of 
Audubon, Wilson, Baird, or Coues — an outdoor student 
of birds and mammals. The laboratory study of natural 
science as conducted in the colleges had little interest for 
him. He preferred the study of the living animal in its 
habitat to the study of its dead body. He felt that the 
pursuit of this sort of knowledge might be intimately con- 
nected with love of the chase and enjoyment of outdoor 
life without being overshadowed by them and lost sight 
of. This double purpose he tried to indicate by the title 
" hunter-naturalist ^' which he was fond of applying to 



362 NOTES 

himself. On his various expeditions he found as keen 
satisfaction in clearing up even in some slight degree the 
imperfect life-history of some animal by observations 
upon its habits as he did in securing trophies of the 
chase. 

While Roosevelt himself almost never referred to him- 
self as a naturalist, yet it may be said that he achieved 
the goal he set for himself in youth of becoming an out- 
door naturalist such as Audubon or Wilson or Coues. In 
1907 no less authority than Dr. C. Hart Merriam said: 
'^ Theodore Roosevelt is the world's authority on the big 
game manmials of North America. His writings are fuller 
and his observations are more complete and accurate than 
those of any other man who has given the subject study.'' 
In 1902, Roosevelt had contributed to a volume entitled 
The Deer Family several chapters dealing with the deer 
and antelope of North America as he had studied them in 
the West. It is from this book that the two selections here 
included are taken. From them it is easy to discover the 
qualities that made him an authority in this field. 

Observations on Concealing Coloration in African 

Animals 

As indicated above in the selection ^' My Life as a 
NaturaUst," one of the scientific problems that espe- 
cially interested Roosevelt was that of conceahng, or 
as it is frequently called, protective coloring. The ques- 
tion at issue was, To what extent does the coloration of an 
animal, by resembling the background against which it 
is seen, render it inconspicuous and thereby protect it 
from its enemies? Some writers on the subject have 
claimed that all forms of animals are concealingly colored 



NOTES 363 

and that this underlying principle is the explanation of 
the development of color in the animal kingdom. Roose- 
velt took issue with so sweeping a generalization, especially 
as it was presented by G. H. and Abbott H. Thayer in 
their book Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom. 
The extract here given from Roosevelt's paper, '^ Reveal- 
ing and Concealing Coloration in Birds and Mammals '' 
states his general position as well as indicates the range 
and accuracy of the observations upon which he based 
his views, especially in connection with data gathered on 
his African trip. 

Animals of Central Brazil 

303 : 1. trip. In the winter of 1913-1914, Roosevelt 
made an exploring and collecting trip through the valley 
of the Amazon River, — the heart of South America. Such 
a trip has been suggested to him in the last year of his 
Presidency by Father Zahm, a Catholic priest who was 
himself fond of exploration and was acquainted with 
South America, but for the time being such a trip was 
put aside for the African trip of 1909-1910. Finding him- 
self invited to deliver several addresses in South American 
countries, Roosevelt decided not to return home without 
exploring the depths of the Brazilian wilderness. The 
American Museum of Natural History in New York was 
glad to send two naturalists, George K. Cherrie and Leo 
E. Miller, to accompany the expedition. Father Zahm 
also joined it. Among the others in the party were Roose- 
velt's son, Kermit, who had been with his father on the 
African trip, and Anthon}^ Fiala, a former Arctic explorer. 
The object of the expedition was to secure animal and 
plant specimens from the central plateau of Brazil, which 



364 NOTES 

lies between the headwaters of the Amazon and Paraguay 
rivers. 

After Roosevelt ^s speaking engagements had been ful- 
filled, the expedition started on December 9, 1913, into 
the wilds. It was the latter part of April when it emerged 
into civilization. The achievements were noteworthy not 
only from a zoological standpoint but also from a geo- 
graphical. A full and vivid account of it is to be found 
in Roosevelt^s book Through the Brazilian Wilderness. In 
lieu of an extract from that book, there is given here a 
resume of the trip in a lecture delivered before the members 
of the American Museum of Natural History, December 
10, 1914. 

303 : 12. Brazilian officers. The Brazilian Govern- 
ment sent with the Roosevelt expedition Colonel Rondon, 
a noted army engineer and explorer, and a number of 
assistants and scientific men. 

306 : 15. " Cannibal Fish.'' The piranha. Roose- 
velt says of this fish in his Through the Brazilian Wilderness: 
'' South America makes up for its lack, relatively to Africa 
and India, of large man-eating carnivores by the extraor- 
dinary ferocity or bloodthirstiness of certain small crea- 
tures of which the kinsfolk elsewhere are harmless. It is 
only here that fish no bigger than trout kill swimmers, 
and bats the size of the ordinary ' flittermice ' of the 
northern hemisphere drain the life-blood of big beasts and 
of man himself.'^ 

307 : 2. The Unknown River. Roosevelt claimed that 
he had put on the map an unknown river in length and 
volume roughly corresponding to the Rhone, the Elbe, or 
the Rhine. The upper course, he asserted, had never been 
traversed, although the lower course, he admitted, was 



NOTES 365 

known to a few rubber-men but was not known to ge- 
ographers. This announcement caused much discussion in 
scientific circles and learned opinion was divided as to 
the validity of his claim. However this may be, Roose- 
velt and several of his party had an exciting and perilous 
trip down the River of Doubt as they called it. An ac- 
count of this may be read in Through the Brazilian Wil- 
derness, 



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